We stack Aston Martin's hardcore Vantage GT8 head-to-head with the ultra-exclusive £1.2 million V600...
. That it never came – at least not as a regular addition to the series production model range – remains a disappointment. Then again, Aston is hardly alone in failing to distil the essence of a pared-back, race-bred road car and repeat it time after time. As every manufacturer that fancies its chances soon discovers, five decades of RSs and two decades of GT3s are hard to beat.
These are rare and special cars. Just seven V600 coupes were built, this example being owned by the original commissioning customer, who sanctioned Aston to build the other half-dozen, plus seven V600 roadsters. There are more GT8s – 150 to be precise – but they were very much built to order and make for an extremely rare sighting on the road. All of which makes this gathering in the mountains of north Wales all the more exceptional.
Slot in the key, then push and hold to hear the starter spin, before the V8 bursts into life. Modern Astons like to holler, but the GT8 is on another level. Raucous and unapologetic, it’s the Noise Abatement Society’s nemesis. Offering a manual ’box in a modern road racer might seem anathema, but a stick is now a cherished bastion of a more analogue driving experience. Likewise hydraulic power steering offers characteristically detailed feel and a meaty weight.
The objective was a Vantage with the wide-body look of the GT8 but shorn of the wings and track aspiration. The customer also wanted design motifs unique to the V600 , together with a few subtle elements recognisable in the all-new Vantage. Beneath that distinctive bonnet he wanted the final-generation 5.9-litre V12, tuned to deliver a full 600 PS and mated to the seven-speed manual transmission. It would be his take on, while evoking the spirit of Newport Pagnell’s twin-supercharged monsters.
Like the GT8, the V600 shares the AM305’s compact feel. It always was a brilliantly packaged machine and these two serve as a reminder of how this generation of Vantage was just about the optimum size for British roads. It was this feeling of compactness that made the original shoehorning of Aston’s largest engine into its smallest car seem gloriously anarchic.
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