At $26,900, Is This 2009 Aston Martin V8 Vantage An Amazingly Affordable Exotic?

Aston Martin takes its name from its co-founder, Lionel Martin, and from Aston Hill, where Martin plied his talents competing in hill climbs. Today's Nice Price or No Dice V8 Vantage is more of a grand tourer than a racer, but we'll still need to see if its price is too high a climb for us.

Santa Cruz, California, is known for its University of California campus and its plethora of clothing-optional beaches. The smallest of those, "2222 Beach"—simply named for being across the street from 2222 West Cliff Drive—is described as a "baby beach," no larger than an average backyard. 

The 1978 Datsun 510 wagon we looked at on Wednesday is being offered in Santa Cruz; in fact, its seller boasts that it has lived there its entire life, having been originally sold by the city's Datsun dealership. Fortunately for those of us with demure tastes, the Datsun arrived in a modest cloaking of faux woodgrain paneling over original yellow paint. Not so modest was the seller's $8,450 asking price. Based on many of the comments, that price appeared to be a fleecing, an opinion reflected in the 87% "No Dice" loss the car received.

Datsun was one of the largest Japanese brands competing in the U.S. market in the 1970s. Along with Toyota and Honda, the company set domestic carmakers on their respective heels. In comparison, British cottage car builder Aston Martin sold just around 3,000 cars over the course of the entire decade. Those were dark times indeed for such endeavors. 

Flash forward thirty or so years, and Aston Martin looked to be doing much better. So much so that the 2009 Aston Martin V8 Vantage we're considering today is one of almost 25,000 V8 and V12 editions built over the car's laudable 12-year model run.

Dubbed the "Baby Aston" by Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson, who also averred it to have the best-sounding exhaust of any car of its era, the V8 Vantage was Aston's attempt at a more mass-market (but not too mass-market) sports tourer in the vein of Porsche's 911. While never selling in the 911's numbers, the V8 Vantage proved a sizable hit for the Warwickshire-based company.

This Vantage Roadster is claimed to be in excellent condition, and wears new brake pads and fresh rubber on its factory seven-spoke wheels. Under the bonnet lies a 4.7-liter 32-valve V8 with dry-sump oiling, allowing it to hunker down and lower the car's center of gravity. The engine also sits back behind the front wheel axle line, making it a front/mid mounting. That's achieved by moving the transmission to the rear of the car, where the six-speed "Sportshift" manual-matic shares space with the transaxle. Even though the aluminum block with iron liner engine is only naturally aspirated, it manages a healthy 420 horsepower and 347 pound-feet of torque. Aston based the engine loosely on Jaguar's AJ-V8 (remember the two companies were once roommates under Ford), but modified it significantly so no parts are shared. There are other obvious adoptions on the Vantage, including a pop-up navigation screen borrowed from Volvo, and other interior components that will prove familiar to Ford fans. That means that, should any of those components break, they should be fairly easy to source.

According to the ad, this Aston's color is "Custom." That may be the case, but it looks burgundy to me. Or maybe Merlot. It's a little hard to judge in the pictures since they're either too dark, having been shot in a parking structure, or too light in the top-level pics. Regardless, the car comes across as being in excellent condition. The color theme extends to the top, which is electrically operated and features a glass rear window, as well as to the two-tone interior.

That cabin is swaddled in leather, a material that typically doesn't hold up all that well when applied to the heat sink that is the dashboard. From what we can see on this car, it's actually in good shape, not having experienced the shrinking and drying one might expect. In fact, the only booger to be called out in the cabin is an odd mark on the passenger seat squab. That, however, might actually just be a rogue rubber band. Per the ad, the car has 63,000 miles on the chassis and comes with a clean title and a recent emissions test certificate, so it's ready for the next owner.

For that next owner (which would only be the car's third), there's the small matter of the $26,900 the seller is asking for the purchase. That amount of cash would alternatively buy a couple-year-old average car or crossover, and is a far cry from the six figures this Aston sold for when new. It's also way, way less than what a Porsche 911 of similar vintage will set you back.

That might just make this the bargain of the day, but we'll have to see just what you all think of the opportunity. Would you say that the $26,900 asking price makes this seemingly need-free Aston Martin a cheap-seats-near-exotic? Or do you envision further depreciation in its future, making this the wrong time to jump on the V8 Vantage bandwagon?

You decide!

San Francisco Bay Area, California, Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.

H/T to Don R. for the hookup!

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