HELL, Michigan — How much is Frederic Edwin Church’s “Cotopaxi” oil painting at the Detroit Institute of the Arts? Priceless. How much is the 2026 Aston Martin Vantage S Roadster in my driveway? Out of reach for most.

But, like Church's painting, we are drawn to Aston’s masterpiece because it is a work of art. The pinnacle of its genre.

Superbly crafted, my Malachite Green Vantage tester was achingly beautiful. My eyes swept across it as if admiring a master’s painting: Muscular lines, swept windshield, long nose punctuated by a menacing grille. The details are sublime: blade-like rocker panels, scalloped hood, six-block daytime running lights.

Unlike Church’s portrait of a fictitious volcanic eruption, the threat of the Vantage is quite real. At idle by the side of Patteson Lake Road in Hell, the Vantage’s twin exhausts gurgled with menace under the elegant ducktail.

On Hanckard Road, I buried the throttle and the Aston erupted.

With a colossal 670 horsepower from its 4.0-liter, twin-turbo V-8 (14 more than the standard Vantage), the supercar inhaled the landscape in front of me. Developed alongside the Vantage GT3 car that is leading the 2026 IMSA Weathertech SportsCar Championship’s GTD class, the Vantage is remarkably nimble for a 4,000-pound production car.

After cruising across Washtenaw Couty, I entered Hell and selected TRACK mode. The variable shocks noticeably stiffened, making the car feel as one with the road. Sticky, summer Michelin Pilot Sport S tires gripped the asphalt. Switch the eight-speed automatic transmission to MANUAL mode. Pull the bat-wing-shaped paddles behind the steering wheel to keep the V-8 in its fat, 3,000-6,000 RPM torque band.

Third gear. Full throttle.

Snatch fourth gear. Brush the brakes into a right-hander. Back to third.

SNAP! CRACKLE! POP! Fireworks from the quad exhaust.

Back to throttle.

Sweet V-8 music. And for 2026, it comes in a convertible.

The Vantage isn’t the only topless masterpiece in the supercar gallery, of course. There’s the raw, athletic $387K MacLaren 750 Spider; the ferocious $285K Porsche 911 Turbo S Cabriolet, the $127K Chevy Corvette Z06 Convertible.

Top down, the roar of the Aston V-8 washed over me along with the hot summer air. Aston says the droptop only adds 132 pounds. It’s also efficient to raise.

Think under seven seconds at up to 31 mph compared to 11-15 seconds for other cars in class. That’s a godsend for Brits in overcast England. Rolling into downtown Ann Arbor to pick up my favorite Zingerman’s Pastrami Reuben for lunch, I conveniently put up the top without having to pull over.

“That’s a sexy car,” called out a passerby. You make a lot of friends driving an Aston.

“Need any help?” asked a Ford F-150 driver as I filmed the Aston in a state park near Hell.

“Watch out for the calcium chloride they spread on the dirt roads to keep the dust down,” said a sedan driver as I stopped by the road for more pictures.

We all want to preserve great art.

Unlike other small European sportscar makers that have become part of international conglomerates, Aston has remained independent. To help maintain its character, Aston has partnered with Mercedes (which holds a minority stake in the brand) on its drivetrain and electronics.

The result is classic Aston design married to modern tech.

Though it’s not, ahem, Mercedes’ most modern tech. Where the Mercedes-AMG GT63 boasts state-of-the-art adaptive cruise control with auto lane change (including a slick feature whereby the front LED headlights bath the adjacent lane with a gigantic white arrow to let traffic behind know the car’s about to turn). The Aston’s ACC system is a couple of generations old — ping-ponging from side-to-side in I-75 lanes and giving up in long corners

I became fond of the system’s auto feature that kept ACC on standby, ready to take over. Storming into Pinckney after inhaling a line of slower traffic, I braked to the 35 mph speed limit — then simply rolled the steering wheel’s ACC button. The Vantage S instantly became a model citizen cruising through town.

The Vantage also doesn’t offer a head-up display. Competitors like Merc use it for navigation — and for a horizontal tachometer so you don’t need to take your eye off the road while rifling through gears at 6,000 RPM.

The cabin design is charming, if old school. Lovely carbon fiber-and-leather dash trim cradled a console screen that was slow to the touch. The center console itself is a sleeve of buttons like the last-gen Porsche 911 and Corvette.

A word of praise here for Corvette, which plays in this supercar league at a fraction of the price of competitors. At its core is a normally-aspirated V-8 with the same output as the Aston’s twin-turbocharged unit — an engineering triumph born of the same international GT3 racing series in which Aston, Mercedes, Porsche and McLaren compete. This year, the ‘Vette beat Aston Martin & Co. to the checkered flag at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the world’s most prestigious endurance race. Not bad for a Chevy.

While ‘Vette and Merc are built for big Yankees, my 6-foot-5-frame frame fit snugly in the Vantage S cockpit. There’s no rear seat for storage like the 911 and Merc GT, no utilitarian hatchback like the latter.

There are, however, quirky British touches like the bonnet release on the right side of the cockpit under the glovebox. Why there? Because Vantage is a right-hand drive British car — converted to left-hand drive for the United States.

The sum total is an interior that splits the difference between the raw McLaren (forget radio, its V-8 soundtrack is all the audio you need) and the tech-tastic Corvette, which borrows from siblings like the Cadillac Escalade and GMC Yukon Denali.

Pricing also splits the difference between the $400K McLaren and the $125K Corvette. It’s a topless Grand Tourer that will drop jaws at the Woodward Dream Cruise — then drop the hammer in Hell’s twisties.

On a deserted Glenbrook Road, I floored the brake. Then the gas pedal. Revs stabilized at 3,500 RPM. RRRRRRR! I let go of the brake and all Hell erupted.

Just like the Cotopaxi volcano in Church’s masterpiece.

Next week: 2027 Kia Seltos

2026 Aston Martin Vantage S Roadster

Vehicle type: Rear-wheel-drive, two-door, two-passenger supercar

Price: $209,400, including $3,500 destination charge ($249,500 as tested)

Powerplant: 4.0-liter, twin-turbocharged V-8

Power: 670 horsepower, 590 pound-feet of torque

Transmission: Eight-speed automatic with shift paddles

Performance: 0-60 mph, 3.2 seconds (est.); top speed, 202 mph

Weight: 4,050 pounds (est.)

Fuel economy: EPA estimated 15 mpg city/22 mpg highway/18 combined

Report card

Highs: Work of art; V-8 from the gods

Lows: No head-up display; tech lags competitors

Overall: 4 stars

____

©2026 www.detroitnews.com. Visit at detroitnews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.