The 2007 Aston Martin V8 Vantage Is an Amazing Exotic Car Value

This is a 2007 Aston Martin V8 Vantage and it's a true exotic car that you can get for the price of a new small crossover. I know that because I owned one of these myself eight years ago. It was a great deal back then and it still is today and now I'm going to review the V8 Vantage and show you all of its quirks and features. Before I get started, big news! This V8 Vantage is for sale and it's being auctioned live on cars and bids. This is an early model, unmodified, with a six-speed manual transmission, reasonable miles, and a clean accident-free Carfax report and it can be yours on cars and bids. So, once you finish watching this video, click the link in the description below to visit the live auction for this V8 Vantage where you can bid on it and buy it only on cars and bids. All right, time for the quirks and features of the V8 Vantage, starting with a little overview of this car. So, the Vantage came out for the 2006 model year and it was a big deal when it debuted because it was an entry-level Aston Martin. Back in 2006, it was intended to compete with the Porsche 911, the Audi R8, the Mercedes-Benz SL, which were all far more accessible cars than other Aston Martin models had been. In fact, this had a starting price of around $110,000 back in 2006, which was a lot cheaper than previous Astons. They had all been $150,000 or $200,000 cars at the highest level of the exotic car world and then this came out as a relatively affordable Aston Martin that you could buy instead of a Porsche or a Mercedes SL, bringing the Aston Martin name to a much broader buyer base than previously. But with that in mind, we start the quirks and features of this car with the key, which is right here. The key fob is hilarious on this car because it is a Volvo key fob with the rear wrapped in leather. Why did they wrap the back of the key? Because the plastic says Volvo on it. So they figured the easiest thing to do, take the existing Volvo key, just wrap it in leather, and nobody would know. Except that years ago on the internet, someone peeled the leather off their Aston Martin key and discovered that it just says Volvo. And that's because when this car was developed, both Volvo and Aston Martin were owned by Ford. And so they figured they would do some parts sharing to spread out the cost. And there's more Volvo in this car, which I'll get to in a minute. Now, beyond the key, you go to open the door and you can see it has a cool exotic car door handle flat up against the body. Back before that was common like it is now, you push the front part and the back part comes out and then you pull on that and the door opens. And yes, this car has Aston Martin's swan wing doors that open a little bit upwards, not just out. It makes the car certainly look cooler and it also helps clear curbs. If you park next to a high curb, you don't have to worry about scraping the door because it opens up in addition to out. But anyway, next we climb inside the Vantage and there's a lot to like in here, starting with the general layout and design of the interior. Really is beautiful. This gorgeous dashboard shape that kind of curves towards the driver and the front passenger. It looks nice, gorgeous stitching everywhere, a lot of leather. It really is both beautiful and classy. And frankly, it still looks good all these years after this car came out almost 20 years later. And it's not just the overall look, but again, the materials, the stitching, the leather all over the dashboard looks great. The seats look fantastic in full leather with nice contrast stitching down the center and on the sides. The steering wheel has perforated leather and the gauge cluster is absolutely gorgeous. This was a hallmark of Aston Martin models from this time period. This silver aluminum gauge cluster almost looks like a fine timepiece. It's just gorgeous like most things in this interior. And in the center control stack, you start looking at the details and there's more to love. The engine start button is very cool. Right in the center, you press it, feels neat and there's an Aston Martin logo on it. And below that, the climate control dials are metal. They feel good. They feel very thick and heavy, and it's all very nice to press and touch and look at in here. But there are a few interesting interior drawbacks. The most obvious is the stocks coming out of the steering column, the turn signal stock, as you can see. And over on the other side, the wiper stock are very cheap plastic. I think these came straight out of the Ford parts bin and they just don't look good. They don't feel good. And it is totally not befitting a car at this price point with this brand name or with the rest of this interior quality. Now, speaking of stuff that this car borrowed, I mentioned Volvo earlier. You go into the door panel. These are Volvo window switches and Volvo mirror controls. Now, it doesn't really matter. Volvo is an upscale brand in itself, and so they have upscale switches, and so it looks fine. It's just interesting to see Volvo stuff in an Aston Martin. And it comes with a hidden quirk. Most Vantage owners don't know this, but if you press the left and right mirror control at the same time, the power mirrors will fold in automatically. This was a trick that Volvos had from this era, and since this car uses all this Volvo switchgear, the Vantage has it too. And that's how you fold the mirror. And by the way, one other drawback of this interior worth pointing out. In this particular Vantage, when you turn on the car and start it, the navigation screen doesn't pop up from the center of the dashboard like it is supposed to. In other Vantage models, you turn it on and that screen pops up. Now, personally, I kind of look at this as actually a benefit, because that screen only contained the navigation system, so it doesn't have any other stuff in it. And the nav system in this car was total trash. It was like cheap, old-looking Garmin, and it just looked bad. Seeing it right there on the top of the dashboard, you would actually kind of rather hide it. So, frankly, the nav system is a flaw, whether it's up or whether it's down and not popping up like it should. But on to the rest of the interesting interior quirks, starting with the tachometer, which goes in reverse. You can see it climb in sort of the opposite direction that other car tachometers climb, which is kind of a cool little Aston Martin touch. Aston Martin models from this era all have that, and it's kind of neat. You also have a sun visor, no surprise, but it's tremendously small. This incredibly narrow, long, wide, but very, very small sun visor. Certainly an odd operation. Next, we move into the center console, where you can see this center console armrest. Very nice leather pad, and it doesn't open up for storage. You don't get any storage there. You also have the world's smallest cup holders directly next to this center console armrest. You do have a glove box in this car, which is a nice storage touch. And, of course, there's door panel storage as well, but none here in the center console. And next up, another unusual item with this car is the parking brake. The parking brake here is mounted between the driver's seat and the driver's door. This is common on some 80s and 90s exotic cars, but it's generally pretty rare. It's called a flyaway parking brake. And the way it works is, if you want to put it on, you pull it up, and then it's engaged. But if it stayed up, it would be blocking your access to getting in and out of the car. So you can then push it down. It's still on, but it's down. If you want to take off the parking brake, you pull it up again, then you push the button in the top position and push it down, and then it's off. It takes a little bit of a learning curve getting used to, and it's certainly quirky, but it's what the Vantage has. And next up, back to storage. Behind the front seats, you can see there's no rear seats in this car. Instead, you have a shelf where you can store stuff if you want to, so some extra cargo storage space back there, which is nice. And you also have hooks back here, so you can hang your suit jackets if you wish while you're driving tremendously fast to your next appointment. And next up, last thing worth pointing out in here, you will notice between the seats, this car has a six-speed manual transmission with three pedals. And so, since I've introduced it, let's talk about this car's powertrain and drivetrain. So we move under the hood where we can see the namesake V8 of the V8 Vantage. Here in this car, it's a 4.3 liter V8 that makes about 380 horsepower and about 300 pound-feet of torque. Now, one interesting thing about the Vantage is this 4.3 liter V8 was only used for a couple of years before Aston Martin upgraded in the 0809 models to a larger engine. That was a 4.7 liter V8 with about 420 horsepower and about 350 pound-feet of torque. So this smaller V8 was only on the first couple years of V8 Vantage models. Now, obviously, Vantage models equipped with the larger V8 are more desirable, but there are some benefits of early cars like this. For one thing, they're cheaper. Obviously, it's only a 40 horsepower decrease, but it's a lot less money on the used market. And frankly, I thought the earlier cars just looked a little bit better. When Aston switched to the 4.7 liter V8, they then started making changes to the body and the design of the car. Eventually, there were hood scoops added, there were strange paint colors, different wheels. I always felt that the very first couple of years of this car were sort of its most pure design, which is important because this car is a lot about its beauty. That's part of the point of why you buy it. Now, the 4.7 cars also looked good. There's absolutely no question, but Aston did really start to kind of screw with it. And eventually, they even offered this car with a V12 in addition to the V8. And those had even more changes to their appearance to kind of mess with the original simple design of this car. I really do like it better, which is why I bought one for myself. I owned one of these cars a long time ago and I specifically chose an early one exactly for that reason. I just thought it looked a lot better and it was cheaper. Now, as for the transmission, I showed you a second ago a six-speed manual with three pedals in this car. It was also offered with an automatic. Aston Martin called it sport shift and it was a sequential manual. So it was a clutchless manual transmission like Ferrari's Formula One transmission at the time. It was a little clunky and it adds some unreliability to these cars. The manual is definitely the way to go if you want to maximize your driving enjoyment. Now, as for the engine itself, you can see one interesting thing is just how far back it is set here in the engine bay. It's pretty far back, which almost makes this a mid-engine car. The bulk of the engine is on or behind the front axle, which is better for weight distribution. Also worth pointing out about this powertrain, you can see the stamp of approval from the person who signed off on this engine. Mick Motten, I guess, is the person who you can blame if it has reliability problems down the line because he gave the final inspection. Thank you, Mick. Everything is great. Next up, we move on to the cargo area in the Vantage. The tailgate, the hatchback. There are several ways into the cargo area. There's a little button in the interior next to the gear lever. You can release it. There's a button on the key fob that opens it up. But my personal favorite is this unlabeled silver button in the back. It doesn't show you what it is or tell you. It's just there and you push it and the tailgate pops open and you can lift it up. I love that silver button. It's got to be the classiest way to enter a cargo area in entire history of the automobile. But you open up the tailgate and you quickly discover that, well, it's a cargo area. There's nothing particularly quirky or exciting or interesting back here, except for the fact that it's fairly large given that this is a sports car Aston Martin. Certainly more space back here than in a lot of other rival sports cars at the time. Since it's a tailgate and a hatchback, it gives you more space, which is nice if you want to take this car on a long trip. Now, beyond that, also worth pointing out in the back, this car has these very cool clear taillights. These are not factory original. The early Vantage models had colored taillights like reds and oranges for the brake lights and the turn signals, but these were added aftermarket from a later Vantage and they look good. And of course, when you actually turn on the brakes, the turn signals, they light up in the proper colors. Also worth pointing out back here, you get a dual exhaust to let that V8 breathe and breathe it does. It sounds quite good when you rev it. Take a listen. So those are the quirks and features of the Aston V8 Vantage. Now let's talk a little more overview, starting with production numbers. This car was made from 06 all the way through 2015. And over that time period, Aston made about 15,500 V8 powered coupes like this one. They made about 6,200 V8 powered roadster models. They only made about 2,500 V12 powered coupes and only about 480 V12 roadsters. So the roadster was far less common than the coupe, almost by a factor of three to one or five to one for the V12 cars, you see a lot more coupes than you do convertibles. Now, these days prices are quite affordable. Like I said, you can buy one of these for the cost of a new small crossover. And I think a lot of the reason why these cars are so cheap is because there's a perception of unreliability. It's British, it's aging, it's an Aston Martin, it's probably going to be expensive to own. But is that even really true? These cars get submitted to us at Cars and Bids all the time with some pretty high mileage, getting into the 50, 60, 70, even 80,000 mile range. They still seem to be running, which is a pretty good sign. I owned one of these and I had issues with mine when I first got it because it had been sitting for a while, but I drove it 20,000 miles in a year and I had no real problems through the rest of my ownership. I drove it from Pennsylvania to California and back across the country twice up to Canada. It was a pretty reliable car and that's the feedback I get from most owners. And if it really is a reliable car, then it's a pretty appealing one, especially at this price point and especially given its look, because this car is absolutely beautiful. That's another main benefit of the V8 Vantage from this era, just a gorgeous, simple, clean design that has aged beautifully. Even 20 years later, this car still looks fantastic. It looks exotic without being too in-your-face. It looks beautiful and expensive and just gorgeous. Other Aston Martin models from this era were also attractive cars, but I always felt the Vantage looked the best. The design language just worked best on this smaller car compared to the larger DB9 that I always felt looked a little bit more stretched out. That too is a beautiful car, but this was the most beautiful aside from the famous 177 hypercar that Aston also made. So a gorgeous car with affordable pricing, decent performance. Let's see how it drives. All right, driving the V8 Vantage, which feels very familiar to me because I owned one of these, basically this exact car. It was eight years ago that I owned it, but I drove it across the country from Pennsylvania to California and back, and I put about 20,000 miles on mine in a year. So I remember all of this quite well. To me, the biggest thing this car does right is the size and the feel of sportiness. When you think about Aston Martin, you don't necessarily think sporty. It's on the list of things you think, but it's not maybe number one. You think about luxury, you think about grand touring, beautiful design, but this car really does have a very special sporty feel because it's a small car, it has good power for its size, and this manual transmission is excellent. The clutch pedal is a little bit heavy, a little bit too heavy, and a little bit not linear enough. It's a little kinked, but the shifter action is fantastic. And more importantly, a manual to drive around in this car, this size with this power is the perfect transmission. And it didn't even have to be a perfect manual to be a great compliment for the car, and it isn't quite a perfect manual, but it does make the car feel just fantastic and fun and lively in a way that I think other Aston Martins don't quite as much. I recently drove the Verage, which was heavily based on the DBS. That was a great car, but it didn't quite have sort of this fun, lively, let's go kind of character that a sports car has. This truly feels like a sports car, and it drives like one, and it's great at it. And there's other great stuff in here too. The interior in this car is very nice, even almost 20 years after it came out, which is hard to believe, still looks beautiful. You know, nice stitching, good overall design, everything looks nice. The gauge cluster is nice. It really is a good, good, good place to be. And then there's the sound. Even though this is the small V8 of the two Vantage models, you know, the later ones got the 4.7, it still feels just awesome in terms of the way that it sounds, the way that it feels. It really is a fantastic driving experience from a sportiness perspective. Like it sounds like a sporty car that shifts like a sporty car. It moves around like a sporty car. And to that end, let's talk handling. Again, not something you necessarily associate with Aston Martin as like a huge forte, but this car is great at it. Despite, again, being 20 years old, almost, it feels fast. It's quick to change direction. The steering could be a little bit quicker. And in a modern car, it would. In a modern Vantage, it is. But in this car, it's still pretty excellent. And again, because it's relatively small, both in size and in overall heft, weight, it shifts around very quickly. It moves well. So what are the drawbacks to this car? To me, they're not really substantial. The price to cost to own is discussed as a drawback to this car. But in my personal experience, it's not really all that bad. I had one of these cars, again, I drove it 20,000 miles in a year. When I first bought it, it did have some issues, but I think that those issues largely stem from the fact that the car had sat for a long time before I bought it and wasn't really being used and was abused. When I finally did start driving it and using it, it had absolutely no problems. It was driving well, and it really didn't have any issues in terms of reliability at all. It was really no big deal. Now, obviously, the other drawback is the car is starting to age, and the interior shows that. I mentioned already the screen in the center. It doesn't pop up, and when it does, it's not really the greatest system anyway. That's a drawback of this car, is just that it's getting older, and that's a reality that you're going to have to deal with. But that's true of basically any car in this realm. But I got to say, you know, I don't know, I find it to be kind of an interesting thing. Compare this to a 997, compare this to various other cars at this price point, at this age range, and I think it has some big advantages. It's more exotic, it's more beautiful, it drives almost as well, it's cooler, it's more exciting, and frankly, I don't think it's tremendously unreliable like some people do. Regardless, I think that this car is a surprisingly strong buy in the sports car world, and I think one of the reasons it's only gotten this cheap is because it has this rep for unreliability that I'm not entirely sure it really deserves. And generally, I think overall, I find this to be an exciting and fun car, and I think it's generally a joy to drive, a joy to use, and a joy to look at, especially for this price point. I think this is a really, really desirable car, and I thought that so much that I went and bought one eight years ago. I still feel that way now. It's still great, market's gone up on them a little, but I think it's still worth it. And so, that's the 2007 Aston Martin V8 Vantage. There's a lot to like here. This car has an exotic brand name, beautiful styling, a great driving experience, all for reasonable money, and I personally think it's a lot more reliable than most people might assume. And you can get this vantage on cars and bids. Anyway, now it's time to give this car a Doug's score. And the Doug's score is here, 60 out of 100, which puts the V8 Vantage here against some similar cars. It scores reasonably well, and it even ties the more valuable Vanquish from the same era. The Vantage isn't as beautiful or as fast, but it's more fun to drive and a bit sharper. Overall, there's a lot to love about the Vantage, and my own experience suggests they're fairly reliable, making it a pretty significant amount of car for the money.