The V8 Vantage is a hand-crafted sports car that offers electrifying performance and outstanding agility. The most affordable of all Aston Martins, it fuses traditional Aston Martin style and everyday usability. The result is the world’s most desirable sports car.

The Aston Martin V8 Vantage is an exotic sports car designed to be driven everyday, if an owner is so inclined, with extreme ease of use and practical function.

The two-seat, rear-drive 2006 Aston Martin V8 Vantage is available in one model, with one 380-horsepower engine and one transmission. The price generously includes destination charge and gas guzzler tax. The V8 Vantage’s transmission is a conventional six-speed manual with a foot-operated clutch. Standard equipment includes a leather interior with Alcantara headliner and real aluminum trim, 10-way power adjustable seats, automatic climate control, AM/FM/6CD stereo, trip computer, halogen projector headlights, LED taillights, an alarm, and seven-spoke 18-inch aluminum alloy wheels.

The 4.3-liter V-8 is both user-friendly and charismatic, although a little more grunt wouldn’t hurt. Most customers likely will eschew the standard six-speed manual for the new automated gearbox with steering-column-mounted paddleshifters. We tried both and prefer the more intuitive and fun fingertip controls on the optional SportShift.

While other sports cars have a sport button that can be pushed to initiate quicker throttle and transmission responses, the V8 Vantage roadster defaults to the sport setting. If the driver should want more relaxed gearchanges, there is a comfort button on the instrument panel.

On Provence’s Mont Ventoux hill-climb, the Aston’s handling is fluid and progressive instead of razor-sharp and instant-on. Turn-in is quick but not overly so, and when you need more lock, you consciously wind it on instead of just flicking the wheel. This slow calibration provides more depth and better feedback, but it also makes you work that little bit harder. When the tail overcomes grip and comes around under power, it takes a hardy armful of opposite lock to control the slide and very self-confident timing as you prepare to exit.

Aston Martin, a company known only for super-expensive GT and racing cars, has just introduced the V8 Vantage, a quintessential sports car of stunning lines, outstanding performance, bespoke quality and a price — $110,000 — that falls right between a well-equipped 911 Carrera S and a base 911 Turbo. The V8 Vantage is a tweedy British fox loose in the stuffy Stuttgart henhouse.

Interestingly, Aston Martin, owned since 1994 by Ford Motor, is run by a German — CEO Ulrich Bez, who is an ex-Porsche exec and experienced 911 racer. “The 911 is an interpretation of how a sports car was built in the 1950s and ’60s,” he says. “The Vantage is how a car should be if you start with the engine, all four wheels, and the driver and passenger in the right places, and then you tailor the suit that covers it. It’s simple — refined simplicity.”