Would You Take A Punt On A Sub-£30k Aston Martin Vantage Roadster?

Recently, I reviewed the new Aston Martin Vantage Roadster. Spoiler alert: Yeah, it’s pretty sensational.

No surprise there, given we like the coupe a lot here at Car Throttle and even wheeled it along to our Car of the Year test last year. There is, however, a sticking point for us all here – the asking price.

Motoring journalism is not a career you pick if you want to be able to afford the cars you drive. Unless you managed to make a good go of YouTube in 2012-2015. Or are called Jeremy Clarkson.

Which means a £180,000 Aston Martin is truly out of our budgets, quite frankly, no matter how much we loved it. With that in mind, we’ve looked for some more aspirational options in the classifieds – and well, there’s a brave decision out there for someone.

It turns out that if you go armed with £30,000, you can pick yourself an AM05 Aston Martin Vantage Roadster. Should you, though?

For the uninitiated, the AM05 is the Vantage produced between 2005 and 2018. You could have it with a V12 from 2009, though you’ll need a lot more money to play with than we’ve allowed ourselves here – think closer to £80,000.

At the time of writing, a browse through Auto Trader reveals 14 V8 Roadsters for sale – so your pickings are pretty rich. You’ll need to be content with an early car, with all being from 2007 and 2008. Oh, and all will have the Sportshift gearbox.

Our pick is this ‘08 registered, 50,000-mile example. It’s listed with reputable Aston dealer McGurk, which says it’s been responsible for maintaining the car since 2019 and has a total of 18 service stamps in its book. Well looked after, then.

That’s good news, because if something goes wrong, expect repairs to be mightily expensive. Electrical issues are known to be common (with a British sports car? Shock), and that gearbox will be eye-watering to repair if something goes bang.

When things are working, though, it’s a drop-top Aston Martin Vantage in the correct colour for £27,850. You’ll get the audible orchestra of a 4.3-litre naturally-aspirated V8, and a healthy 420bhp to play with.

Is this a brave pill worth swallowing? You’ll have our admiration if you do.