BRUT FORCE

With more power and steroid- injected bodies, these 'X-Pack' coupés from Aston Martin and Ford reflect the brash machismo of their era

- PAUL HARDIMAN

There's a myth about the magic number '432'. Among Aston Martin fans it's associated with the beefiest normally aspirated factory V8 built in its 1986-'89 swansong. But not all X-Packs - denoted by '580X' in their engine number - are equal. In most cases a smidge over 400bhp is your lot, unless it benefitted from the extra carburettor work that in reality few received.

In practice, does it really matter? Among the screaming but torque-light 600bhp V12s of the modern era, can you feel the difference of 20 or 30 real, old-style British horsepower in a near-4000lb, 200bhp-per-tonne car, when it's torque that gets you down the road? I can't. In the real world, it's not so much what it does, but the way it does it, and it's here that around 400lb ft marks its territory. Aim it down a dual carriageway, crank open the octet of Weber butterflies and the whole plot trembles and quivers momentarily before hunkering down, then lifting its nose and launching into a relentless run. And all without changing out of top.

The acceleration builds more strongly as you pass 3500rpm and, rather like the fable of the Vincent Black Shadow, it feels as if it would keep accelerating until the road ran out or it reached the moon, whichever came sooner. That demonstration of sheer might is still exhilarating 40 years later, its indifference to gradient or wind rather putting your insignificance into place. For the record, Motor got 168mph from a 'standard' Vantage (about 380bhp and 370lb ft) in 1981, and 5.2 secs to 60mph, and this feels as if it would shade it.