My day was made as I woke up this morning, opened up my mail and came across this! This is the new Aston Martin V8 Vantage N420 Roadster, the convertible version of the recently revealed motorsport-inspired N420 Vantage. And my God it’s beautiful. It is of course not that different than regular Vantage Roadster, there’s just new set of wheels and a few subtle tweaks, but in this color it looks absolutely stunning.

Being a race-derived model, the N420 Roadster is 27 kg lighter than the standard car thanks to extensive use of carbon fiber. It comes with wider sills and carbon fiber splitter, side strakes and diffuser, and 10-spoke diamond turned alloy wheels complete with gloss black finish, black mesh vents and ‘Graphitic’ tailpipe finishers.

For the interior Aston Martin offers an Iridium package, with graphite instruments, leather or Alcantara steering wheel, special N420 sill plaques and lightweight carbon fibre seats, complete with ‘Race Track’ stitching as in the V12 Vantage. Bluetooth connectivity, cruise control and Park Distance Control are also standard.

The car is also fitted with the normally optional Sports Pack as standard. It includess revised springs, dampers and anti-roll bars for even more responsive and dynamic handling, and a new sports exhaust system for an even louder bark from that awesome V8, which by the way remains unchanged at 420bhp giving the car a top speed of 180 mph.

To further customize your N420, you are presented with the optional Aston Martin ‘Race Collection’ paint schemes, all inspired by Aston’s racing heritage, including ‘Rose’ yellow, ‘Kermit’ green and ‘Elwood’ blue, as well as ‘Asia Cup’ livery shown here.

Pricing for the Aston Martin V8 Vantage N420 Roadster starts from £96,995. Dunno about you, but I’m saving!