1985 Aston Martin V8 Review - I Drive my Dream Aston

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Today on the channel, I drive a hero car of mine - the Aston Martin V8. Beginning as the DBS V8 in the 1960s, the Aston Martin V8 was the mainstay of the range until 1989. Today at long last I get to drive one and see just what the fuss is all about.

Thanks to Nicholas Mee for allowing use of their footage of the V8 Vantage

#AstonMartin #V8 #vantage

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[markg]

When I was 7, in 1985, my parents bought a house from this guy who had a 1985 Aston Martin V8 vantage. I asked my dad if he would ask the man if he's let me sit in it, which he did, and took me around the block in it! 2 years later it was in the Living Daylights. I'm 44 now and it still my favourite car! Cannot wait to watch the video 😊

[jjefferyworboys]

I recall being a passenger in a late 80's manual V8 convertible fitted with a 6.3 Le Mans spec engine producing @ 500bhp. The car was brutal, the sound epic and the bonnet twisted noticeably under hard acceleration. One of those experiences that I will always remember with a huge grin !

[DanCaton-yp]

I’ve adored these for years, so when I came up against an Aston V8 in my Jag XJR 4.0 and blew it into the weeds I was gutted - the owner definitely floored it. Meeting and beating your hero was no fun at all.

[leedsleedsleeds]

When I was a kid (late 70's) I had a pack of Top Trumps playing cards and the V8 Vantage was one of my favourite cars in the pack

[Kelveron]

Love the imposing styling, kind of reminiscent of the best of American muscle cars of the era

[eagle_and_the_dragon]

The British Muscle Icon 💪

Gorgeous thing at launch, further cemented by Living Daylights.

Beauty 😍

[francomartini]

13 year old me first saw the Aston Martin DBS V8 in 1970 at the cinema in _On Her Majesty's Secret Service, _ (the only film with George Lazenby as James Bond) and it was love at first sight.

[damieg]

15:40 note that a common issue with many old cars is an uncalibrated throttle. The usual suspect is an old and stretched accelerator cable, which either needs adjustment or replacement. The other culprit might be the carb linkage itself. Either way, it means that putting your foot flat on the pedal, does not actually translate to full wide open throttle. I'm 99% sure that's the case here because even at full throttle, the transmission was short shifting like if it was only partial throttle being applied... that's a telltale sign of bad calibration.

[semperspj]

Bought a series 3 in 1999 as a divorce present to myself. 2 pumps of the throttle pedal and started everytime, almost shook the tiles off the garage roof ( no back boxes). All the things you say are true, but it didnt matter, it was the way I felt looking at it, sitting in it and driving it, after 30 years in the motor trade and owning many hundreds of cars, its the only one i wish i'd kept, used to stop traffic every time i tried to drive through Norwich, just magic. RKX 700M, where are you now.

[colinhoward]

The blue Vantage you showed there was actually Victor Gauntlet's presonal car when he was the boss of Aston Martin, it has a 5 speed manual box too . He lent that car out to all the worth while motor journalists of the day, it was also, during the day, Aston's sales demo car (Vantage of course), a car I lusted over as a teenager, I really wanted it !

[nigelgrice]

jay emm, you are bang on - the auto box kills it, even if it is still a nice old thing. Sadly, I no longer have my 1970 DBS V8 which I owned for 20 years, with the amazing Bosch mechanical fuel injection, which, when set up properly, was fab. Mine had the ZF five-speed dog-leg box, and as a result of it being used as a sprint/hillclimb car as well as our long-distance fast car, it acquired various sneaky upgrades - quicker rack, vantage cams, bigger valves, original spec cosworth pistons, forged rods, wide bore exhaust (back box delete), firmer springs, adjustable konis all round, fatter anti-roll bars front and rear, AP front hubs and brakes, larger oil cooler, wider lower profile tyres on 16" wheels. It handled like a Ford Escort on steroids, and went like STINK. AND THE NOISE! I even recommissioned the A/C, which made it much more civilised. 375 bhp, compared to the original 320, which the early manual injection cars had. I met it recently, in the hands of its new owner. He has not changed any of my mechanical upgrades, and he LOVES IT, and uses it as much as he can. Lucky boy. A real bruiser in a Saville Row suit, as someone once said.

[dstewusa]

In 1979, a BRG Vantage manual was my first passenger ride in a Supercar when I was still a kid - a family friend took me out for a spin in his

It was like a spaceship, my Dad had an SD Rover V8 at the time but this was completely different level

I remember he gave it the full beans from 30-60 in second gear - fantastic noise, the bonnet seemed to rise up, the cream leather interior, the ashtray packed with a mountain of cigarette butts.

A sorted one with 7 litre and 400+ hp is really my dream classic, shame they’re exorbitantly priced

[yippeethreeeight]

I'm with you. Definitely the most beautiful Aston ever built. Well, it has the most character, IMO, for sure.

[LeslieHedley]

You should definitely try a manual. I owned a 1978 V8 during 1998, so it was 20 years old then. It was a manual with the carburetor engine. All I can say is that the performance was 5 - ish seconds to sixty and it felt like it. My car also didn't have the vibration on idle. It sounds like the engine in your test car may not have been in the best of health. Definitely try a manual if you get the chance. I always regretted selling that car.

[nagaraworkshop]

In the 1980s I freelanced for an Aston specialist and so got to drive everything from early DB 2/4s through to the Oscar India V8s and Lagondas. The lack of performance you're getting from the car you're testing is most likely down to three things; fueling, ignition timing and and the state of the automatic gearbox. The fuel injection system was often unreliable and many owners opted to change to Webers. Yet the Webers really need to be set up properly with close attention to the linkages - when done correctly it makes a massive difference. My boss at the time, RSW, nearly always suggested quite a bit more static advance than the factory suggested; if, in 3rd gear, from a cruise, the engine did not ping when floored, he would say there's not enough advance. I'm not sure what long-term effect that might have had on wear, though the V8s out of his workshop were always massively faster than when they arrived. The Torque-flight auto gearbox is also often not serviced properly or regularly and for drivers who wanted a more sporty response there were valving options and 'shift-kits' available in which the box would pretty much lock up in 2nd and 3rd (or even in 1st if desired) and that also made a massive difference.

There was a chap who raced a lemon yellow V8 in the inter-marque hill climb challenge to huge effect and made the fastest time of the day one year at Wiscombe Park (where I was a marshall at the time) in an automatic using only 2nd gear! So with the right tweaks, the cars could be made to go very well. however, many customers were annoyed at having to pay for work that they thought the factory should have done in the first place.

My main criticism of the V8 models was, however, the handling. Yes, they could be made to grip and go very well, but I hated the dead steering feel (compared to a DB4 or 5), the constant feeling of huge weight and the very unprogressive and sudden tendency to understeer - I didn't enjoy driving them. The DB4s and 5s, in spite of being less grippy and and slow in comparison to a sorted V8, were very involving and a real joy to drive.

[neilwilliams]

32:03 - Only that many were sold because that's all they could make in that length of time. As you said before, they are all fully hand built so each car took a long time to make. One of the best days of my childhood was having a guided tour around the factory with my dad in Newport Pagnell at the time when your car was built, thanks to me being a member of AMYSC (Aston Martin Young Supporters Club). What a day! I still treasure the small offcuts of bodywork and chassis I picked up off the floor ;-) .

[FreshHesh]

Man what a full fledged documentary. I have been following you for quite some time and I have got to tell you, you match the best OG Top Gear.

Kudos to you for the sheer love and hard work you put into every single one of your episodes.

[grantmarchesi]

Not just my dream Aston, this is the car I want more than any other full stop. Ever since first seeing one in "The Living Daylights" I have had an unquenchable thirst for one of these.

The stuff of legend as far as I see it. Well done.

[ericpisch]

A long time ago my friend had a V8 RS Williams 450 and it certainly didn’t feel slower than my B5 RS4 (new at the time) utterly amazing machine and the noise oh my. I hate to think what it would be worth today.

[concordelounge]

The Vantage front-end changes were for aero. The scoop was letting more air out than in, so swapping it round to a bulge made it more efficient. The engine was able to get as much cooling as it needed from the holes in the Vantage's big lower valence, with the grille really not adding anything, so blanking it off lowered drag. The first few cars also had the headlamp nacelles covered with perspex too, but this was dropped.