Aston-Martin's latest concept has the look and feel of a real supercar – not to mention that heavenly exhaust note.
Project Vantage stood low and lean, its metallic green carbon-fiber body work glinting and shimmering under the relentless Florida sun. Prior to that morning, Aston Martin's latest multi-million dollar concept car had only been seen by a few stratospheric Ford execs – Jac Nasser and the like – in the open air. Hacks such as I had only drooled over it under arc lights at the Detroit or Geneva Motor Shows. Electric lighting can be tuned, shadows cast, highlights exaggerated to make cars – and people – look perfect. Flaws can be hidden, beauty spots highlighted, but wheel the car out into the daylight and the pretense is instantly shed. Especially if that daylight is the mega-jeweled brilliance of a Florida morning which shows no mercy to any form of skin – mine or the Aston's carbon fiber.
"Plastic" bodies were once more full of ripples than a Sunday afternoon ice cream, acned with porosity and stress points, as if a fine spider's web had been caught beneath the paint work. No more. Now, the only way to tell a "plastic" body panel from a metal one is by tapping it, a dull hollow sound replacing the echoing ring of metal. And so it is with Project Vantage which has composite and carbon-fiber panels specially designed for high-tech, low-production runs.
Once again penned by Ian Callum, Project Vantage takes his sublime DB7 one step further, filling out the shape, adding muscle beneath the DB7's elegant lines. There's a hint more Aston - especially DB4 GT Zagato - to the front grille that sits above a mesh lower air intake flanked by a duo of piercing spot lights. The nose is longer, sharper with a keener shape to the inverted, stylized "D" that forms the Lexan cover to the projector headlamps, themselves a quartet of 25,000 volt High Intensity Discharge lights twice as powerful as conventional halogen ones. But that's what you need in a car theoretically capable of 200 mph.
Move round the car and you see front fenders that have filled out to accommodate hand-cut, intermediate compound, 255/40 ZR19 Bridgestone tires and handsome 19 inch cast magnesium road wheels (another Callum creation). It's from the back that Project Vantage really discloses its potential: A broad venturi sucking out airflow from under the body to reduce lift, a subtle duck-tail spoiler and shoulders over the rear wheels that look as if they've been modeled on Evander Holyfield's. There's nothing subtle about them, just like a football player's shoulder pads they scream "POWER." Maybe the line running from the door handle back to the spoiler is a little too right angled and could do with more radius, but it's the only distraction in an otherwise memorable machine. It once again proves that good looking, front-engined GT's don't have to be red, don't have to be styled by an Italian in Turin and don't have to be built in Maranello.
Such observations have been gleaned while Project Vantage's mincer, an Aston mechanic named Brian, is giving his charge just one last fettle. A final check before I am allowed to drive the multi-million dollar one-off.
Without warning there's a blast of sound from the Aston as a dozen cylinders burst into life. Brian blips the throttle a few times and lets the engine settle down to a steady beat. Six thousand cubic centimeters, 48 valves and a myriad of other components sing a song I haven't heard since the glorious wail of normally aspirated 3.5-liter F1 engines from Matra, Lamborghini and Ferrari. Though muffled by a nine-liter catalyst, the Ford-Cosworth developed engine has the same hard-edged wail but, unlike highly stressed competition engines, it doesn't settle down into a lumpy idle, constantly demanding blips on the throttle to clear its throat and prevent stalling. It simply sits there humming its potent song.
Bob Dover, Aston's chief executive - Bentley owner and, in a previous life, the man behind Jaguar's XK8 sauntered over. Cigarette in hand, he looked up and fixed my gaze, "Be careful".
Until then, I'd been perfectly okay. The only sweat coming from Florida's oven-like sun. It wasn't the first time I'd driven a squillion dollar one-off supercar and I wasn't about to try and prove that Aston Martin's computer predicted four seconds to 60 mph, was slow. But I got the feeling from Bob that if I had done so, then he would have got me out the car without bothering to open the door or release mefrom the four-point seat harness.
Unlike some supercars you don't have to be a yoga fetishist to get in and out of Project Vantage. Your bum slips easily into the deeply contoured Connolly hide and suede covered bucket seats, your legs disappearing into the tunnel and your feet resting on two pedals - brake and throttle. Two, because Project Vantage is fitted with Magnetti Marelli's automated manual transmission and the clutch is missing.
The interior is not like other contemporary Aston Martins. Yes, there's plenty of leather and suede but not an ounce of timber, in it's place there's bare extruded aluminum and carbon fiber.
Ahead of the driver there's a quartet of dials: Tachometer, speedometer, temperature and fuel gauges. The only one I am told to concentrate on is the tachometer.
Away to my left there's a Ford - sourced switch for mirrors, likewise the other buttons are from Uncle Henry's parts cupboard: A Puma has been raided for its radio, Jaguar for the interior door pulls. Pragmatic, yes, yet it still jars with me that such practicalities have to be taken but, I suppose an Aston Martin with Ford switch gear is better than no Aston Martin at all.
Either side of the steering column there's two large paddles, right for upshifts, left for down, though it's doubtful if I'll get beyond fourth in the six gears available during the short run that I have been allotted.
The engine has been switched off to save it from cooking itself while I am taken through the controls and trussed into the seat like a chicken ready for the oven. Ready at last, I grab the pull to close the door and catch Dover looking at me - yet another cigarette, yet another beady stare.
Turn the ignition key and, a la Bentley Continental T. hit a big red button in the center of the instrument panel. Instantly the V12 springs into life and when I gently prod the throttle, the engine barks back, hair raisingly urgent and crisp. Already there's a silly grin of anticipation on my face and the car's still in neutral.
I flick the right-hand paddle and the Borg-Warner six-speed clunks and clanks into gear, snatching the clutch plates together. The car judders a little as I set off with Dover's warning ringing in my ears.
With revs rising beyond 2000, the shift to second is easier and smoother - third likewise and then it's into fourth. Similarly the ride is getting smoother as speedincreases and I can feel the hand-cut Bridgestones starting to bite a little in turns, whereas before they felt like Bakelite trying to grip ice.
I see a series of bends coming up and although I know I needn't shift down, I do. There's still the mechanical clunk, but overshadowing it the engine gives a quick snarl as its electronic brain performs an automated heel 'n toe. The grin gets bigger, and I do it again to hit an un-required second gear. BAAAARP. I can't help but giggle, it's intoxicating.
Back up through the 'box, back down: BAAAARP, BAAAARP with each down change. I am like a kid with a new toy on Christmas morning.
Without any air-conditioning the cabin gets infernally hot, the 450 hp. V12 pumping out tremendous heat into the footwells, turning each into mini-saunas. Vision through the windshield is obscured somewhat by glare from the aluminum dash trim, but after all this is a concept car and not a production prototype.
Trundling along at 40-50 mph, it's impossible to assess Project Vantage's handling. The steering seems to turn in well and remain true, the ride's a bit lumpy and crashy, but the all-wishbone set-up is far from optimized. What you can sense, even in this crude state, is that the aluminum chassis - a combination of honeycomb and extruded sections and carbon-fiber body panels weighing only 458 lbs - has created an immensely strong and rigid platform.
All too soon the short drive is over. I slow Project Vantage down to rejoin the group, revelling for the last time in those automatic throttle blips on the down shifts. The huge - 15 in. front, 14 in. rear - vented and drilled AP Racing brakes with six-piston calipers feel competition hard and stone cold (which they are), but I manage not to embarrass myself and stop safely. Holding both paddles selects neutral and I give the big V12 a final burst of throttle and kill the engine. Bob Dover smiles and lights another cigarette.
"Plastic" bodies were once more full of ripples than a Sunday afternoon ice cream, acned with porosity and stress points, as if a fine spider's web had been caught beneath the paint work. No more. Now, the only way to tell a "plastic" body panel from a metal one is by tapping it, a dull hollow sound replacing the echoing ring of metal. And so it is with Project Vantage which has composite and carbon-fiber panels specially designed for high-tech, low-production runs. 
