We’ve known a droptop version of the Aston Martin Vantage was coming for a while. After all, the carmaker teased us with a picture of it on Twitter last October, going so far as to have “Spring 2020” printed on the car’s door. Well, Aston must go by Punxsutawney Phil’s rulings on seasons, because while the calendar says February, they’ve just revealed the Vantage Roadster for all to see.
The new Aston Martin Vantage Roadster is, for the most part, identical to the coupe that’s been prowling around for almost two years now. It packs the same AMG-sourced 503-horsepower twin-turbo V8, and sends its power to the rear wheels through an eight-speed automatic. (The seven-speed manual that’s available on the coupe can’t be found in the droptop — at least, not yet.)
The biggest difference, of course, is the roof. A Z-fold soft top rises or falls in less than seven seconds — 6.7 to go down, 6.8 to go up — at speeds of up to 31 miles per hour. With the roof up, the Vantage Roadster can blast all the way to 190 miles per hour; no word on what it’ll do with the roof down, but odds are good your Sean Connery toupée will be lost well before the car runs out of poke.
Going for the roadster doesn’t come at much of a penalty in terms of performance or capability. The droptop is just 124 pounds heavier than the coupe, so it’ll still vault from 0 to 60 miles per hour in 3.7 seconds. And the trunk still holds seven cubic feet of gear, theoretically giving it enough room for a golf bag.
And the price differential isn’t all that severe, either. The Vantage Roadster starts at $161,000 — about 10 grand more than the coupe. The first examples will be arriving between April and June, but odds are good that if you don’t have your order in already, you’re gonna have to wait a little longer.
