V8 Vantage Roadster makes appearance at LA Auto Show
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>> Take Aston Martin's most accessible car, the V8 Vantage, take off the top and here's what you get. The V8 Vantage Roadster. One of the show stoppers going on here at the LA Auto Show. Now the basic mechanicals remain the same on this vehicle. Of course it's been stiffened up as all convertibles need to be, but Aston claims just a slight weight increase. They use a lot of exotic materials and bonding technologies to create the under pittings of their cars anyway. So stiffening didn't require a whole bunch of ungainly welding to be done. When the top is down, it's very interesting. You've got this hard shell cover and a couple of upholstered sort of power bulges back here that are almost kind of Pontiac Solstice. I know they don't want me to say that, but that's what they remind me of. Inside the car, we're looking for some interesting technologies that would include a slot for the SIM chip out of your GSM phone. That's how you might enable the in card telephony on this. Instead of actually using your phone via Bluetooth, you take the chip out, put it in the car and the car's internal phone rig becomes the actual phone. That's a very tidy and robust way to do in car telephony. Other interesting technology here is a battery conditioning and battery cut off apparatus built into the electrical system. That way you can keep the car from aging in place if you're not driving it every single day. And I figure folks who have one of these probably have a few other interesting cars as well. So this may not be their daily driver. In terms of power, 380 horsepower, do zero to 60 in under five seconds, six speed manual or a paddle shift automatic is also available on this vehicle. Deliveries will start in Q2 07.
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