Aston Martin Vantage Roadster
Eyebrows were raised when an Aston Martin engineer, speaking at the Austrian launch of the new Roadster, suggested the spring and damper rates had been carried over wholesale from the coupé unaltered.
For something without a proper carbonfibre tub, this would be irregular. When you lop the top off a coupé, the body often then needs to be dramatically strengthened, adding heft to a car whose axles are already no longer singing in perfect unison because torsional stiffness has plummeted. Custom suspension rates are devised to claw back some precision and cohesion – or at least enhance the perception of those attributes.
As it happens, the Vantage Roadster's rear dampers do run recalibrated software, but the change compared with the coupé is minimal and the front axle hasn't received any attention at all. So is this conversion a rush job? Budgets biting, perhaps? Nope. The Roadster simply doesn't need special treatment, apparently.
So meagre is the weight gain over the coupé and so stiff is the aluminium chassis (thanks in part to the fact it was developed from the outset with both derivatives in mind) that from a dynamic standpoint the coupé and convertible are essentially the same. Given how keen and fun-loving the coupé is, that will be music to the ears of those in the market for a rip-snorting drop-top that really handles.
Here's another surprising stat: 6.8sec. Not the 0-62mph time, thankfully. Rather the time taken for the 'Z-fold' fabric roof to arc through its full scope in either direction. It really is a rapid bit of mechanical choreography. The Porsche 911 Cabriolet needs 12sec and Ferrari's Roma Spider a little longer still.
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