Lopping the top off a supercar is a sure-fire way to gather some more buyers in the supercar segment. The added weight due to chassis reinforcement might be counterintuitive, but all that stuff doesn't really matter, right?
British supercar manufacturer Aston Martin certainly doesn't think so as it has just unveiled a drop-top version of the popular Vantage coupe, which is conveniently called the Vantage Roadster.
While the 'Volante' badge has been dropped, the same AMG-sourced twin-turbo 4.0-litre V8 sits under the hood, and pumps out a healthy 375kW and 685Nm of torque. This is either sent through an eight-speed auto, or a seven-speed manual.
As you'd expect, the roadster takes a little longer to make the 0-100km/h sprint than the coupe. It does it in 3.7 seconds, compared to the coupe's 3.5 seconds.
To minimize weight, a unique 'Z-Fold' roof mechanism has been implemented. This adds just 60kg over the coupe and holds the record for the fastest roof of any automatically folding convertible on the market.
Just 6.7 seconds is all it takes to fold down, and 6.8 to come back up again. This can also be completed at speeds up to 50km/h, which is a while away from the reported top speed of 306km/h.
Like other roadsters, the Vantage gets additional under body bracing, but utilizes the same suspension system from the coupe. Torque vectoring, the electronic LSD, and three driving modes also carry over.
"Convertible sports cars are often seen as compromised when compared to their Coupe equivalents," Matt Becker, Aston Martin Chief Engineer says. "But the Vantage Roadster remains absolutely dedicated true to its mission of delivering precise, agile and expressive handling dynamics combined with stonking straight-line performance. And of course, there's the added dimension of driving a great-sounding sports car with the roof down."
International deliveries are set to kick off in the third quarter of 2020, so we'd be expecting to see this car in New Zealand in late 2020.
