Gadgetory

the beach at Normandy the Bridge on the River Kwai James Bond movies so many good things that the British have been involved in so what the hell happened here let's drive the 2012 Aston Martin Vantage Roadster and check the ill-conceived poorly executed overpriced tech so what is an Aston Martin Vantage it's the smallest Aston Martin it's a handmade car and this one's a roadster we've got a cloth power top nothing too tricky not a metal retractable but it works well gets out of the way and leaves you with a small but usable trunk so if the looks of this car are all it's got going for it let me show you all the things it doesn't have going for it starting with that the insult who the hell puts that in a car like this this tells me one of two things either Aston Martin is so stupid they don't know that that is a horrendous interface or they're sneering at their customers saying Oh give him their little screen like their little iPhone gadget technology is not a gadget anymore guys it's central to your product now this little helper display does all your media and telephony its glare field very small and rams an awful lot into a small place my climate control status outdoor temperature phone status where the winds blowing do I have Dolby pl2 on and my source and content readouts you can do Bluetooth calls in this car but that's optional I mean after all it's only 136 grand let's not throw in the Bluetooth you won't be streaming Bluetooth stereo audio because that's simply not available so go ahead and put your phone down here in the phone cradle except it won't fit and then there's this what is this I have no idea I scoured the manual I tried fitting it everywhere it doesn't really fit anywhere it might just be a sex toy the last reviewer left here this is called the trinket holder in other words is where you put your wedding ring when you're out at the bar cruising for Cougars behind here are some strange little binnacle 'he's there's one behind me here that has the world's crappiest toolkit and then there's one over here that goes to nothing Oh check this out very nice fancy cigarette lighter holder except it's not it's the wrong diameter apparently that's a special custom holder for a Lambie brand pen which the last reviewer apparently stole now Aston does this bizarro thing with transmission and key they make this obsessively fancy crystal key they also have something called the emotion controller it's right here in the manual they don't tell you what it is and as far as I know it's a unicorn you put this thing in to start the car and hold it down and then the world's strangest transmission controller reverse start trol drive in this weird sort of layout with the key in the middle once you get the car up and running you look over to your instrument panel you look at your gauges and you get mad look at the fuel gauge or the temperature gauge they use white markings on a bright aluminum bezel you can't read the markings in any conditions so all I can tell is that I'm somewhere between full and empty the speedometer goes to 220 the car goes to 180 you'll be going to maybe a hundred so why waste all that space on the gauge making it impossible to tell if I'm going 55 the best I can tell us I'm in between 40 and 60 the tachometer goes counterclockwise does anything else in the Western world increase going counterclockwise the final insult in this vehicle as you prepare to pull away is that you really don't fit we have the top down for shooting the video but I'd still have the top down even in the rain because that's the only way I fit in this car this car is for a little man before we hit the road let's check out the engine bay where the story does brighten considerably this is one beautiful motor it's a real engines made of real engine parts I'm not seeing tons of plastic shrouds everywhere 4.7 liter v8 as you can see 420 horsepower about 346 foot-pounds of torque gets this 3700 pound car to 60 in about 4.7 seconds while delivering 1421 MPG bad enough to earn you a $1,300 gas guzzler tax however the weight of this car is actually pretty spelt given what it is part of that's from what you see in here in the engine but you can pick up on the aluminum magnesium the bonded construction some steel panels all kinds of different construction technologies put this car together and it's really quite impressive from that aspect so here's our the real trouble of this car arises when you drive it remember we have this six-speed dual-clutch automated manual transmission apparently dating from the 90s it's a piece of crap the car falls flat on its face between every gear I don't care if you're heavy on the throttle light on the throttle barely on the throttle middle on the throttles self shifting on the paddles regular mode sport mode this thing drives like a fifteen-year-old learning to drive a stick it's a disaster the brutal shame is this car handles really well and I think it's got a great engine I have no idea I can't get to the engine because this crap gearbox is completely in the way I'm just really shocked this car was approved for production and I'm being quite honest put the car in sport mode here it does remap the throttle so you get more aggressive acceleration it supposedly unleashes more torque I'm not sure what it does there may be a green that's the valvetrain and it also opens up some valving in the exhaust system to give it a real throat now as you can see this car rides like a truck and there is no suspension settings on it it's just the suspension sporty really hard so here in was a broken car which for a hundred and seven thousand dollars is inexcusable and I know this car is handmade and that counts for something but in this day and age it's no longer quaint to have things that creak and rattle and weird wind noise back here that's just not funny anymore it's not charming Pallas Christ in Vantage Roadster about a hundred forty thousand with delivery of $2,100 and gas guzzler tax of $1,300 then there are some options 750 for Bluetooth really I'm pretty sure I'm reading the option sheet right that navigation thingy is 2700 who priced this stuff any Youngman now save yourself five thousand dollars by getting rid of that soviet-era gearbox and going with the standard 6-speed manual the other thing we have is the $1600 Aston Martin premium sound it sounds pretty good I can't imagine you want to step up eighty three hundred dollars more to the Bang & Olufsen system in an open car you