Aston Martin V8 Vantage Series 2

The Vantage's look is an argument made in addenda rather than a new shape: William Towns' 1972 restyle of the DBS body, itself softened from his earlier work, carries through essentially unchanged, and everything that marks a Vantage out is bolted or blended onto it in the name of speed. The mesh grille disappears behind a blanked panel carrying twin Cibie driving lights, the standard car's bonnet scoop is closed off and smoothed rather than left open, and a front air dam and rear spoiler, reshaped and fully integrated at the October 1978 Oscar India update, manage the airflow a 170mph claim demands. Inside, the change runs the other way: early Series 2 cars kept the plainer black dash of the original Vantage, with burr walnut veneer only reappearing as an option once Oscar India's more luxurious brief took hold, the first wood Aston had fitted since the DB2/4 of the 1950s. The 1983 switch to wide cross spoke BBS wheels on flared arches was the last significant visual change of the Series 2 era, six years after launch, and it is the clearest single tell distinguishing a later car from an early Oscar India at a glance.

Aston Martin never ran a factory Vantage racing programme, and this generation earned no homologation requirement to satisfy. Its closest connection to competition runs through Robin Hamilton, the Staffordshire Aston dealer who spent the mid 1970s turning a DBS V8 into RHAM/1, a turbocharged Le Mans entry that finished 17th overall and third in GTP in 1977 before an 800bhp 1978 evolution proved too thirsty to race. Hamilton's Le Mans programme fed directly into his later Nimrod Group C effort, and the connection comes full circle on the Series 2 Vantage's own performance flagship: the 1986 V580X X Pack's cylinder heads are described by Aston historians as Nimrod racing type, borrowing directly from that competition programme for a genuine road car upgrade. It is a real if indirect pedigree rather than a manufactured one, closer to trickle down engineering than a marketing claim, and it explains why the X Pack feels like the Vantage the factory's own racers would have chosen, even though no Series 2 Vantage itself ever wore a race number.

"Britain's First Supercar" was Aston's own line at launch, and it stuck: through the 1980s the Vantage was the car that let a company a fraction of Ferrari's size claim it built the fastest production road car in the world, a genuinely contested boast the marque was happy to have printed. Its most visible screen moment belongs to a Series 2 derivative rather than the Series 2 coupe itself: when Timothy Dalton took over as James Bond in 1987's The Living Daylights, his introduction car was a V8 Vantage Volante, later fitted with a hardtop at Q Branch for the film's winter scenes, tying the whole Vantage generation to 007 at a moment when Aston badly needed the exposure. Decades later the connection resurfaced away from the franchise itself: comedian Rowan Atkinson, a long time Aston owner, drove his own V8 Vantage in 2018's Johnny English Strikes Again as a knowing red painted parody of the Bond car it so clearly echoed, proof the association had outlived the cars that started it.

Series 2 opens with the V540 OI Oscar India cars, 44 built between October 1978 and March 1980, mechanically identical to the outgoing Series 1 but visually cleaner and, from 1978, available with a wood veneer dash as an option over the standard leather. The V580 that followed standardised heads, valves and pistons across the whole V8 range for a smoother, more tractable engine, and from 1983 the V580BBS added wider 8 inch BBS wheels and flared arches to carry them, 94 of which are documented. The 1986 V580X, the X Pack, is the one to chase if outright pace is the point: Cosworth pistons and Nimrod inspired racing heads lifted output to a claimed 403bhp, with a rarer Works Service big bore option good for 432bhp, the same specification later used in the V8 Zagato. Rarer still is the Vantage Volante, the drop top Vantage that only became a regular production option in 1986 despite a handful of earlier special order cars, including the ultra desirable Prince of Wales specification without the X Pack's wide arches and air dam. The V8 Zagato itself, coachbuilt and far pricier, sits outside this generation entirely.

Own a Series 2 Vantage and you're managing two things, heat and moisture, more than you're managing horsepower. Chassis rot behind the front wheels is the big one: the outriggers there carry brake and fuel lines, so a proper repair means disconnecting both before anyone can weld, which is why quotes vary so wildly between shops that do it right and ones that don't. The V8 itself is tough but unforgiving of neglect, corrosion at the base of the rear wet liners lets oil and coolant mingle, and head gaskets go if the cooling system or the corrosion inhibitor has been ignored. None of this is exotic or mysterious, and a Vantage kept in regular use and serviced on schedule can cover 150,000 miles between major rebuilds by marque specialists' own reckoning, it is neglect and long lay ups, not the mileage, that create the expensive problems. The Lucas Opus electronic ignition is the one period sensitive part: it works well sorted, but it is worth budgeting for at purchase rather than being surprised by it later. Brake servos left unused for long stretches also need periodic renewal, a known and budgetable cost rather than a design flaw.