The Aston Martin Vantage excels at many things. Fording rivers isn't one of them. The Vantage has a ground clearance of only 3.7 inches, making it ill-equipped to handle deep water. Recently, one Vantage owner attempted to cross a flooded road, only to end up stranded in the middle of it. The internet has already dubbed him "James Pond," but the repair bill is unlikely to be funny.
A video posted online shows the hapless driver cautiously entering a flooded roadway where the standing water appears to be nearly a foot deep. The 670-horsepower twin-turbocharged V-8 begins to choke on the water about halfway through the flood zone, and the Aston Martin then goes silent and comes to a halt in the water.
View Price on AmazonThe frustrated driver exits the car and looks at it as if the Vantage let him down. He then makes a phone call, and can be heard telling the person on the line that "It obviously got into the engine; it just didn’t look that deep." He then makes his way back to the car and pops the hood to have a look at the motor. Flooded roads are always a gamble when it comes to trying an automotive crossing, and it seems this Aston Martin owner learned that lesson the hard way.
Had the car made a quick stop at MI6's Q branch for the amphibious upgrades from James Bond's Lotus Esprit in The Spy Who Loved Me, the outcome might have been very different. Instead, this mission ended with a busted Vantage, a hefty repair bill, and a new nickname his friends aren't likely to let him forget.
Source: roadandtrack.com
