V8 Vantage Point: Aston Martin Reveals its Manual-Production Factory Secrets
17 Aug 2020, 7:15 UTC ·
by Aurel Niculescu
The original Aston Martin V8 Vantage from back in 1977 was hailed as Britain’s first supercar, a proper 170 mph (270 kph) performer. But its looks were questionable – trying a jab at the muscle car of the moment without forgetting its grand touring roots. Still, the performance was unquestionable – and the latest generation is a proper spiritual successor in this area. But such wonderful automobiles are not just popping up just like mushrooms after a rain – they are lovingly built somewhere.
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That exact somewhere would be Aston Martin’s production location in Gaydon, Warwickshire, the United Kingdom. The Aston Martin V8 Vantage is born there, and we have video proof (embedded below) about the labor of love.
It followed in the footsteps of its DB11 bigger brother in setting up the brand’s “second century” strategy and came with a somewhat polarizing design by the same man – Marek Reichman. Looks are subjective but we agree with the decision – while the larger and costlier DB11 had to bow down to tradition, the nimbler Vantage could definitely carve a different clientele.
And so, it did, thoroughly preparing for the world’s toughest and greenest hell (aka the Nurburgring Nordschleife) but also deriving itself into an innovative open top sporting the fastest-folding soft top on the planet. But how does it all come to life is a question best answered by this new episode in the WELT Documentary – Inside the Factory series.
Because everyone is just starting a brand-new week, we could use a little nudge to get things done right – and this is exactly what happens here. Just look and awe at the manufacturing process for this British sports thoroughbred as it combines state of the art automated processes with the most traditional manual labor (around 200 hours of it, apparently).
We know the V8 engine does not spring to life on the premises, which kind of subtracts a little something from the atmosphere, but fret not – that Mercedes-AMG 4.0-liter and the eight-speed ZF automatic transmission have a successful marriage inside that exquisite body. And they race into a perpetual honeymoon with that 0 to 60 mph (97 kph) sprint of 3.5 seconds in no time! 
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