Aston Martin Vantage Roadster (2025 – ) review

How much?! The price tag, which can rise to over £200,000 easily, feels eye-wateringly expensive for a ‘baby’ Aston, albeit one with an insane amount of power. But that brings us back to our introduction – no one asked for this much performance. Customers in this bracket who might also be considering a Porsche 911, Maserati GranCabrio or Mercedes-Bens SL are often looking for the easiest way in to Aston ownership. The Vantage Roadster feels too expensive and too tricky to drive and you might be better off looking for a used DB12 or even Vanquish. Everything about the Vantage will be expensive - insurance, road tax, personalisation options and fuel. Not words you’ll hear often but Porsche 911 Cabriolet is cheaper.

The Vantage Roadster is pretty new so we don’t have model data, but the brand has been improving year by year for the past decade or so. Aston drivers report friendly service centres and high levels of aftercare, and few reported problems with other models that are five years old or younger.

Yes, it comes with blind-spot warning, great brakes, parking sensors and camera and so on, but this is a very nerve-racking car to drive. It’s far more difficult to place on the road than the bigger and more expensive Vanquish and, because of its shorter wheelbase, when it loses the rear end it does so very quickly. Which is not something you want to think about when planting your right foot with this much power on tap. Even turning out of driveways or junctions is something you have to think carefully about. It gave us sweaty palms on damp roads.

The Vantage Roadster is a very comfy car for long journeys, despite the heart palpitations the powertrain will give you every five minutes. If you’re a track day warrior, you may be able to relax, in which case, the wide, supportive seats and footwell space allow passengers to stretch out, lower the roof (which disappears in super quick time) and enjoy the ride. The materials inside have taken a turn for the better too, with some beautiful tan leathers and matching Alcantara covering the whole interior. The suspension isn’t rock hard, thank goodness, and the exhaust noise level can be turned up or down with the press of a button, so you can match the character of the car to your mood, to an extent.

A big hurrah to Aston for keeping a sensible number of physical, pleasingly knurled buttons and toggles in the car, and not porting everything on to a touch-screen. Speaking of which, the screen in the Vantage is wide, with contemporary graphics. A shame about the ugly, bog-standard digital driver display, though. Aston says its customers wanted digital dials, but a little thought about colour and font wouldn’t have gone amiss. You get Apple CarPlay, Spotify and a great sound system, which all sound like a no-brainer but the luxury sector still seems to think a cool engine is enough for customers, weirdly, so thanks Aston for keeping up with everyone. On the practical side there are cup holders and small spaces in the doors for bits and bobs.

This is either a five-out-of-five car for power, or a zero-star candidate, depending on whether you like your powerful cars to be super-tricky to handle to confirm your god-like status on a track, or docile as a baby for peaceful road trips. We can’t believe many drivers out there seriously want this level of white-knuckled uncertainty every time they get in it, so have erred on the latter side of things. Yes, it’s got an astonishing 665 horsepower, yes, the gear changes feel like the most rapid on the market and, the big yes, it handles and behaves in an identically sharp and taut manner to the coupe version. So, kudos to the engineers for that. But you have no idea where it is on the road, and you have no idea if the rear wheels are about to slide out when it hits a slight ridge or damp patch under acceleration. So, it’s a no thanks from us.