Nice humps. Those sleek cowlings behind the Vantage Roadster's seats, I mean - each clad in saddle-stitched leather. Aston's artisans faced a serious argument with Ford's accountants to gain approval for the expensively leather-clad finish of those humps, a tussle with employees of a parent company that no longer needs appeasing.

As has been widely reported, a group of Kuwaiti investors, fronted by Dave Richards, now bankrolls Aston, and (in the short term, at least) the corporate wallet is wide open to cover such indulgences.

That fittingly opulent hide spills over the seats, door liners and fascia, held together with thick, hand-sewn stitches and pooling around an island of inexplicably miniature, fiddly switches that rise up the centre console.

A tug of one of these, and the canvas roof folds itself out of sight behind a flip-up solid tonneau in a scant 17 seconds, thankfully leaving the magic of the regular Vantage's proportions in place - squat, taut, aggressively wide and ruthlessly cut off at the front and rear. Catch it in the right light and just try not to be swayed.

More to the point, flick the hood switch on the right road, in the right location, and a whole new world of sensual enlightenment prepares to hit you in the face. The crisp freshness of a spring evening, the rush of wind passing overhead, and not forgetting the completely bloody barmy noise that an Aston Vantage is capable of making.

Without the coupe's couple of square metres of sheet metal to shield your ears whilst inside, the Roadster lets its driver realise just what an aural onslaught bystanders are also certain to be faced with.

Alongside the compulsory "Don't crash it," the one other piece of advice offered by Aston's man before handing over the keys was, "Try to keep the exhaust valves closed through villages." Yeah, right.

The ECU works around a combination of engine loads and rpm to decide whether you really are intending to drive like a loon, before opening up the baffles in the exhaust system. This tends to happen somewhere north of 4,000rpm, a burst of sound being released like a 20mm cannon blaring across a battlefield.

In such circumstances, the Roadster makes an even more convincing effort of persuading its driver that it's moving ridiculously quickly than the coupe does. Few cars at least sound faster than this one.

Propulsion comes from the exact same all-alloy, 4.3-litre V8 as the Vantage coupe, with variable- inlet camshaft timing, a dry sump to drop the centre of gravity and a horsepower tally that would leave this car trailing behind in a pissing contest against the likes of the 507bhp BMW M6 and the 517bhp Mercedes SL55 AMG, not to mention the 612bhp SL65 AMG.

By way of comparison, 380bhp may seem lacking, and convincing rumours do continue to circulate of the imminent introduction of a faster-still Vantage.

Drive the Roadster in isolation, though, and should you give a monkey's? Not really. The engine likes to be revved (and with peak torque of 302lb ft not appearing until 5,000rpm, it badly needs to be revved), the rewards appearing in the form of a sense of exact balance between acceleration, that noise and a rigid, tight chassis.