Living With James Bond’s Aston Martin And The Surprises It Brings

Few cars get as much attention as an Aston Martin. Heck, it's James Bond's car, and the Aston Martin Vantage carries a certain panache that separates it from other sports cars. I tested a 2026 Vantage S roadster for a week, and it served as a reminder of Aston's past greatness while offering hope for its future. Plus, it delivered a few surprises.

The Vantage is the entry level Aston Martin sports car, slotting below the V12-powered Vanquish supercar and four-seat DB12. There's no real overlap with these Astons. If you want a two-seat sports car at a semi-reasonable price, the Vantage is your Aston. It's one of the most recognizable, and the name was first used in 1950 on a version of the DB2. It really took off in the 1960s and the V8 Vantage, the forerunner of today's Vantage, first appeared in 1977.

The S badge dates to 1953, so it's more than a letter for Aston: The brand uses it to signal high performance. The Vantage S puts out 670 horsepower from its twin-turbo V8 compared to the Vantage's 656 hp. You probably don't need it, but it's a nice flex.

The engine teams with an eight-speed automatic transmission and can sprint to 60 mph in about 3.5 seconds in the roadster en route to a top speed of 202 mph. With 590 pound-feet of torque, the Vantage S is plenty quick and guttural sound emitted from the quad exhaust will send shivers up your spine.

Test-Driving the Aston Martin Vantage S

If you've driven a Mercedes-AMG recently, you'll be familiar with this engine, as Aston has run Mercedes motors since 2017 and Mercedes owns a stake in Aston Martin. It's a logical play for both sides, as Aston would likely struggle with the development costs, and AMG's engines are bulletproof. I've driven several AMGs with this engine and Aston does enough to integrate it into its sports cars to create its own identity.

A German engine in a British sports car might seem unusual, but I was more surprised with how well the Vantage S was screwed together. My test car had more than 6,800 miles on it. Not an astronomical figure, but not nothing. Sometimes cars start to feel a little creaky at that point, especially sports cars that have presumably been driven hard, but my tester looked and felt immaculate.

The Vantage delivers value, which also surprised me. This one had a suggested retail price of $211,000 and cost $249,500 with import fees and destination charges. There's nothing about those numbers that is affordable or even attainable for most people. But if you are looking to drop a quarter mill, well the Vantage provides a powerful engine, spectacular design and a quality interior that's comfortable and usable.

With Phantom Grey leather, Alcantara, contrast stitching and carbon-fiber inlays, the Aston is far nicer inside than the McLaren Artura Spider I tested last year. The McLaren had infotainment borrowed from the Magnavox era and the cabin materials were basic. The Aston felt luxurious. To be fair, each British speedster is going for something different. The McLaren and its mid-engine layout is a street legal race car. The Vantage S is something closer to a daily driver. But they're similar in power and price, and there's not a lot of comps in this space.

After leaving the Aston dealership you might cross-shop the Vantage with high end Porsche 911 models or the Ferrari Roma. Give Aston Martin credit: It's still in the fight. You only need to look at another British automaker, Jaguar, as an example of what happens when a company loses its identity and starts over.

With the top down, the Vantage S roadster is a cathartic cruiser. The roof opens up in 6.8 seconds, which allowed me to spontaneously drop the top at stoplights. My passengers were impressed on cool late summer drives, the seat heaters on and the radio up. Top down is the way to experience this Aston, as the V8 sounds great and you feel more connected to the world. Breath deeply. Let your senses be heightened. It's all part of it.

That said, with the top up it's almost impossible to see out of the back, and your blind spots are prodigious. While I've praised the interior, sometimes the audio simply wouldn't work and I was left to drive in silence with the motor droning through the cloth roof. That's also part of it.

No surprise, the Aston Martin Vantage S is a stunner

Not surprisingly, the Vantage's calling card is design. It's a gorgeous car with a dramatic silhouette, big wheels and a tapered back end topped by a tasteful rear lip spoiler that creates 40 percent of the Vantage's downforce. That alone would be enough in another era, but now sports cars are expected to have some degree of bling. Aston does this tastefully, with its egg crate grille mawing at the front, sculpted wing badges and fender vents. Arguably, the most striking element is the rear diffuser with the integrated exhaust pipes. It's up there with setups on the Toyota Supra and Chevy Corvette for style and function. People walking by would stop and stare at the Aston, but they often focused on the back end.

Spending a week with the Aston illuminated all of the exhilaration a sports car offers but also some of the compromises. Blasting through open roads, mashing the throttle and dialing up sport mode to feel the steering at its most engaging—it's as good as advertised. All convertibles don't feel as buttoned-down as their coupe counterparts, but the Vantage S was poised with its Bilstein adaptive dampers and special tuning to make the roadster variant more comfortable.

Conversely, not having a back seat, being stuck in traffic low to the ground on the expressway in the rain with semis hurtling past—well that's the price you pay to drive a roadster. Most of the downsides aren't unique to the Vantage S, but it also underscored for me why Aston builds the DBX sport utility vehicle and Ferrari, Bentley and Lamborghini have all added SUVs to their mix.

My Verdict on the 2026 Aston Martin Vantage S

The Vantage S is a modern sports car with a deep legacy that comes alive when you drive it with vigor. Not everything in this segment can conjure up that magic, which sets the Aston Martin Vantage S apart. Sure, there's compromises, but this car handles them better than most, and it's a solid execution for a brand trying to build a future rather than trade solely on its heritage.