Features

At first sight, and this is the first time I've seen one in the flesh, I think the V8 Vantage is a gorgeous car. The rear end has got a nice sort of roundness to it. I don't know what Freud would make of that!

Inside, it gives you that kind of sumptuousness you expect from an Aston Martin. You're just one step away from a gentleman's club.

Talking of clubs, [subtle, Damon, subtle - Ed] we've just taken delivery of two Aston Vantages for P1 International, my prestige and performance car club.

We already have Aston's Vanquish S and various DB9s, but this is the one that will give us a headache to allocate... until we get two.

Firing it up, the first thing you notice is the beautiful exhaust note. It sounds deliciously rich. To get the full rasp, I opened the window and took it straight up to the redline - amazing. Fortunately, you can also purr around quite quietly.

I'm glad Aston went with a manual 'box, as I'm not totally into paddle shifts. I think they're actually a fad which won't last for very long. They're something lifted from Formula One, where they're totally appropriate, but grafted on to road cars, paddle shifts are quite often just downright pointless.

Sadly, I feel Aston hasn't quite got the gearchange right in this car. It's not a slick, sporty gearchange, it's a pig to get into reverse, and the gearlever is one of these short stumpy little things.

As it's a grand tourer, not a single-seater, it would benefit from a fairly big gear-lever, one that you can use your whole arm to drop the cogs into the slot with.

There also appears to be quite a lot of flywheel effect on the engine, so it doesn't blip up very quickly. You can't jump from one gear to the next, because the revs take a while to drop off when you come off, and you are never really sure if the gear has docked properly.

One other thing I thought was a missed opportunity was the steering wheel. It's quite small and the steering is quite heavy. More work could also be done there to make the 'wheel aesthetically satisfying.

The 'wheel is, after all, the thing that drivers always have their hands on. I just think it should be a prized piece of the car, something you would have framed and put in the loo. Compared to everything else, I think it's a bit of a let-down.