ASTON MARTIN VANTAGE ROADSTER

Honing the entry-level’ Aston produced spectacular results. Are they diminished in drop-top form?

- RICHARD LANE

HOW WE TEST CARS

Autocar delivers several kinds of reviews on new cars, with different levels of technical and functional scrutiny. As the name suggests, our First Drives section typically addresses cars that we're driving for the first time – either in final production form or as late prototypes. Time in the car can be limited here, technical and equipment specification might not be finalised and some systems software may not be to production specification. For those reasons, First Drive reports don't have star ratings.

Once we have driven a car for a second time in the UK, in right-hand-drive form and typically at greater length, we will rate it, either as part of a shorter UK test report or as the subject of a full, instrumented Road Test.

In the latter case, we take empirical performance and refinement benchmarks from it at Horiba MIRA proving ground, as well as subjective limit handling impressions, plus key measurements of practicality, efficiency and kerb weight.

All UK tests and Road Tests receive proper verdicts with star ratings informed by everything we have learned and the combined impressions and experience of several testers.

Eyebrows were raised when an Aston Martin engineer, speaking at the Austrian launch of the new Vantage Roadster, suggested the spring and damper rates had been carried over wholesale from the coupé unaltered. For something without a proper carbon-fibre tub, this would be irregular. When you lop the top off a coupé, the body often then needs to be dramatically strengthened, adding heft to a car whose axles are already no longer singing in perfect unison because torsional stiffness has plummeted. Custom suspension rates are devised to claw back some precision and cohesion - or at least enhance the perception of those attributes.