Aston Martin Vantage V600 'Dreadnought' for sale

The last-gasp V600 derivatives were crazy money when new. Has depreciation made them sane?

Italians always get the credit for giving their cars ridiculously cool names. Lamborghini draws its names from fighting bulls, Lancia looks to the Ancient Greek alphabet and only Ferrari can use the name ‘Superfast’ and get away with it. Us Brits, meanwhile, are one of two extremes. We’ll either slap on a bunch of numbers and numbers in the hope they’ll stick, or go after something more twee like ‘Blenheim’ or ‘Brooklands’.

However, you can always trust Aston Martin to deliver the goods when it comes to a name that packs a wallop. The new Valkyrie and upcoming Valhalla are perfect examples of this, while the track-only Vulcan sounds downright devilish (both in name and exhaust note). Add to that list the lesser spotted ‘Dreadnought’: the final model in a long line of run-out specials for the previous generation Vantage. Okay, so it was officially named the V12 Vantage V600, but the ‘Project Dreadnought’ name was used to encompass the seven coupe and seven roadsters that signalled the end of the naturally aspirated Vantage.

Aston Martin’s design team were let off the lead for the Vantage’s final run of special editions. The GT8 and GT12 nicked bits of the Le Mans-winning GTE car, while the AMR Pro wasn’t far off a road-going GT3 car. The V600, however, was a tad more restrained. Sure, it has blistered wheel arches and a giant rear diffuser, yet it’s free of the wings and flicks seen on most other limited-run Vantages. It’s so simple, in fact, that the front bumper and wheel arches are formed of just two panels (for the left and right-hand sides of the car). A new bonnet design was developed for the V600, too, with two rows of small holes helping extract heat, while the back end features an enormous spoiler that’s integrated into the bodywork. No sticky-up wings here.

Peel back the glossy body kit and you’ll find bits and pieces plucked from the track-honed GT12, such as the carbon brakes, three-way adaptive dampers and that glorious 5.9-litre V12. No turbochargers were needed to extract 600hp from Aston’s mighty twelve, and it could now be accessed through a proper seven-speed manual as opposed to the GT12’s old automated manual ‘box. Bizarrely, Aston lumped in a flat-shift function for the V600, which promises to feel all kinds of wrong.

Not that it’s a problem I’ll ever have to deal with because the ‘Dreadnought’ is not cheap. At all. This Roadster is listed at £749,950, although it actually represents a massive saving over the original asking price of about £1.2m. Still, for the same money you could buy at least ten manual V12 Vantages, where dinging the front bumper won’t require a quarter of the car’s bodywork to be replaced.

But that’s not why you’re buying a V600, is it? This is a marker in Aston Martin’s history – the last naturally aspirated twelve-cylinder Vantage that will (probably) ever be produced. Most of these were destined to be locked away in a garage, presumably with owners hoping that values would explode once production of the model wrapped up. This one’s only covered 83 miles since 2019, so it hasn’t really worked - but it means the next owner gets to appreciate one of Aston’s greatest V12 GTs as a box-fresh prospect. Or continue winding down the clock till 2030.

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Robertb

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