Aston Martin's First AMR Is The Vantage AMR

AMR is to Aston Martin what AMG is to Mercedes-Benz, creating evil-twin versions of Aston's road cars that are faster, harder, more exclusive, Nurburgring-developed, and inevitably more expensive. The first car to receive the AMR treatment is none other than Aston Martin's most successful sports car (and considering how long it's been in production, it better be), the Vantage. 

Limited to just 300 cars, the race-inspired Vantage AMR gets its race-inspiration from the WEC winning V8 Vantage GTE, according to Aston Martin. As with the "standard" models, aptly-named the V8 Vantage and V12 Vantage, the AMR will come your choice of a 430 hp V8 mill or the V12 which now produces 595 horses—up from the measly 565 it used to pump out. 

Good news for purists, the Vantage AMR can be had with a manual transmission—a six-speed for the V8 and the dog-leg seven-speed for the V12. Of course, a paddle-shift automatic is also on the table if you hate life lightning-speed lap-times are your thing.

No matter what engine or transmission you choose, coupe and roadster variants of the AMR Vantage can be selected. That means a total of... eight possible engine-transmission-roof combinations available! Knew that math degree would come in handy. (I'll have a hardtop V12 with the clutch pedal, thanks for asking.)

In the UK, the Aston Martin Vantage AMR will have a starting price of £97,995, or the equivalent of around $125,000, with Aston aiming to start delivering cars by Q4 2017. It'll be on display at the 24 Hours of Le Mans this weekend.