When I saw this brand-new Aston Martin Vantage in Vancouver, I looked askance at its Vibrant Lime Essence paint. I found such a vibrant shade rather unbecoming of an Aston. Then I looked at its surroundings and realized a splash of colour is always welcome.
I know cars often look good in white, silver, gray or black but I wish so many other people didn’t know that, too. Though Land Rover offers some stunning paint colors like Madagascar Orange and the perennial British Racing Green, they – like most automakers – also offer a wide range of white, gray and black, as you can see at this dealership. So while I find lurid lime green rather incongruous on an Aston, a brand I associate with effortless elegance, it’s nice to have a splashy reprieve from monochromatic monotony.
As for the car itself, the Porsche 911-rivalling Vantage was redesigned for 2018. Gone are Aston’s house V8s and V12s, replaced with a 4.0 twin-turbocharged V8 sourced from Mercedes-AMG, producing 503 hp and 505 ft-lbs. The German bent-eight is good for a 0-60 blast of 3.6 seconds. While you may scoff at distinctly British Aston’s use of a German engine, however good it may be, purists will be pleased to hear there’s still a manual transmission available. The seven-speed is actually the only application of the 4.0 V8 with a manual transmission; an eight-speed automatic is optional.
The new Vantage is based on the same architecture as the larger DB11 grand tourer, whose styling is more in the graceful Aston-Martin norm. The DB11 is also your ticket to Aston’s homegrown twin-turbo V12.
Aston Martin remains my brand of choice for hypothetical massive lottery jackpot car purchases. While I’ll pass on the whites and blacks in their palette, I’d have to respectfully decline this retina-searing lime green Vantage. Instead, how about a special edition Aston Martin DBS Superleggera OHMSS in the same Olive Green as the ’69 DBS George Lazenby drove in his only Bond film? Now that’s a green befitting an Aston!
Must have been a custom order. It’xs like how RR will paint theirs in any colour you want if you supply the sample.
You’re right, it’s a welcome change from the usual white, silver or black. I like that shade of brown much better. VWs old Sea Sand colour would have worked well too
The Vantage is taut and really pretty, (though would be improved by snipping off the dangling undergarment bits at the back and the ankle-slicers out front). I agree muchly about the boredom wrought by fifty shades of grey and white paint, but I’ve now lived too long and can only see my sister’s foul, pustulent and stinking Datsun 180B (610) in this same Violent Lime Excressence. No then, and still no. Insofar as it belongs anywhere near James Bond, it would be on a suit that the Roger Moore incarnation might’ve worn but certainly not on his conveyance.
That said, the DB11 shown here has a mid-’80’s wimpy indecisive hue that is even less desireable, and if forced to choose, I’d go with the Tradie Hi-Vis Yellow – as it should be called – every time..
Yes, that’s it! I’ve been trying to place this color, and now it hits me… it reminds me of a color that would be on a 1985 women’s aerobics outfit.
This color is a lot like fire engines were in the 1970s, rather than the traditional red. The argument was made (and still is made) that a sort of yellow-green fluorescent color was easier for more people to see under more conditions than the rathe dark red that fire engines were normally painted, but tradition was very, very hard to break. I still see a yellow-green engine from the outside-the-city fire protection service here (apparently Rural Metro uses this color), but the City of Tucson has gone back to fire-engine red.
You think you had it bad with the 180B, my Dad had a 74 Valiant Galant (Dodge Colt in US) wagon in that same color it was called Limelight I think, and I had to ride in it.
Actually it wasn’t a bad car, I learnt to drive in it.
The Vantage front end styling is really generic, It looks like a 1990s design, not even slightly reminding me of an Aston Martin, more like Mazda MX6.
Aston can call that color whatever it wants, but I call it Citron Yella
Citron Yella, close enough to the Ford Mondeo Mk1 in Citrine Yellow. I knew a guy who had one, it was also the first and last Mondeo I ever saw in that shade.
It’s trying too hard but not loud enough to be really “out there”. Pass on the color. And I agree with Matt that the styling is kind of “meh” as well, The older Vantage (2007) at least looked crisp and thought out and is still the one I’d have, dynamics of the thing be damned.
I can’t tell if the color on the Aston is the most ridiculous thing here or if it’s the adventure cargo basket on the $599/month swoopy Land Rover next to it.
As far as the DBS at the bottom goes those wheels take all the attention away from the car itself, which is a shame. Or perhaps the idea?
That colour has been seen quite a lot in roadtest cars and the like on the UK – Aston are clearly trying to attract attention and of a certain kind.
The DB11 is a class act….it or a McLaren 720S in dark red metallic……..?
CC Effect! I was just drivinig past a row of dealerships two days ago, when the thought struck me, there were only one or two cars of any color other than white/silver/grey/ad nauseam! And they were a red, and a black. I WANT greens/browns/blues/yellows! And while I’m at it, interior colors other than black and tan!! 🙂
I’ll just leave this picture as example of a colorful interior! 1970 Charger 500
Our 2009 Camry, in what Toyota called Sky Blue Pearl, with a light gray interior:
Lord, forgive me, for I have sinned…
I’ve engineered a German powerplant into my quewntisentially British Aston Martin.
Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond caught hell for driving a BMW in the ‘90s.
You know the “Greatest Generation” of Britain is gone when this travesty at Aston is allowed to happen.
Churchill and Thatcher are spinning in their graves…
Before getting too bent out of shape, the previous V12 was basically two conjoined Ford duratec V6s
I am not a chartreuse kind of guy, but at least it isn’t white.
It looks like a highlighting marker.
Mercedes-Benz had its own version of fluorscent yellow paint: Mimosa Yellow (DB-618).
https://www.paintscratch.com/touch_up_paint/Mercedes-Benz/1976-Mercedes-Benz-All-Models-Mimosa-Yellow-DB-618.html
I never forgot the sight of W126 S-Class in Mimosa Yellow zooming down the Autobahn in 1980. This car was gleaming so brightly in the gloomy German weather and impossible to overlook.
By the way, this colour is traditionally known as chartreuse.