Meet the 2021 Aston Martin Vantage Roadster

With the soft-top Porsche 911 already in showrooms, Aston Martin couldn’t wait any longer to chop the roof off the now almost two-year-old Vantage. So what can we learn by looking at these four pictures of Aston’s prototype on the move around rural England? Well, not much apart from that Head of Design Marek Reichman’s team wouldn’t mess up the lines that make the Vantage feel more special than your neighbor’s Porsche 992.

The full reveal of this drop-top Vantage will come in the spring. Until then, the rest is anybody’s guess, but while the Vantage coupe has 3373 pounds to move around and a 503-horsepower twin-turbo AMG V-8 under the hood, we’d expect the roadster to be a touch heavier due to all the extra bracing. Still, having 505 ft-lb on tap should be plenty for thrilling acceleration , even if the roadster won’t match the coupe’s 0-60 time of 3.5 seconds. As for the soft-top, Porsche’s roof can be opened and closed in 12 seconds at speeds up to 31 mph, and Aston Martin will likely target similar levels of convenience.

You’ll pay a premium for the roadster to be sure, but the big question is whether Aston will offer the topless Vantage with the same optional a seven-speed manual gearbox as in the hardtop.

We won’t see the 2021 Vantage Roadster in the new Bond movie premiering on April 3, but the 25th iteration with England’s most famous spy will feature both a classic 1977 Series II V8 Vantage and a current DBS Superleggera, as well as a DB5 replica and the mid-engined Valhalla. And with that, Bond goes hybrid!