It’s nearly impossible not to smile when you squeeze the throttle on the new Aston Martin Vantage.
Aston executives may wax on about the Vantage’s state-of-the-art infotainment system, but what’s under the hood is more exciting: a heavily reworked, hand-built 4.0 twin-turbo V8 that delivers 656 horsepower and a thunderous howl.
Take it for a spin on winding roads or test its limits on a race track — the car’s rowdy, brash exhaust note reacts to every input the driver decrees. The latest version of the British marque’s 60-year-old sports car clearly answers enthusiasts’ demands: give us a mighty engine that we can see, smell and experience.
The Vantage is not for environmentalists who are searching for performance and zero emissions. In fact, Aston executives have pushed back their timeline for building an all-electric sports car, citing the lack of interest from consumers. Instead, resources are going toward launching a powerful, “fearsome” V12 engine that could produce 824 hp.
Aston is far from alone. Bugatti’s new hypercar, coming June 20, still features a W16 engine. Lamborghini, the Italian supercar brand, said the successor to the Huracan packs a twin-turbo V8 engine.
“Enthusiasts absolutely want a V8 in the supercar segment,” Alex Long, director of product and strategy at Aston Martin, told ABC News. “They want the sound quality it brings, the feel through the cabin, everything. Our customers are not asking for an electric Aston.”
The anti-electric attitude extends beyond the enthusiast community. Forty-six percent of Americans say they are “not too likely or not at all likely to purchase” an EV, according to a recent poll by The Associated Press -NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago.
Earlier this year, luxury German automaker Mercedes delayed its electrification plans by five years, with CEO Ola Kaellenius telling investors the company was still committed to producing combustion engine cars. Last month, Toyota executives announced its engineers were developing smaller, next-gen engines that can run on alternative fuels like liquid hydrogen.
Industry insiders are calling the trend “return to ICE,” or internal combustion engines.