I took delivery on my seal gray 997s in May and am loving it. A nice perk that I had not anticipated prior to taking delivery on the car is the "street cred" it gives you as I am always interested in test driving cool cars...I felt a bit more confident walking into the local Aston Martin dealership asking for a test drive of the new Vantage than I would have in my Audi (even though it's a great car as well).

Anyhow, my curiousity was peaked by all the great press the Vantage has gotten since it's release (touting it as the 911's new rival) and wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Without going into an exhaustive review, which is well described in many publications, I'll render my opinion by simply saying....PORSCHE...THERE'S STILL NO SUBSTITUTE. The Vantage is a beautiful car, and the V8 sounds great with hard acceleration...but a week later, that's all that really sticks in my mind. In contrast, I was blown away the first time I drove a 911 S (and I owned an Audi S4 at the time). The easiest way I can describe the feeling of driving a 911s to those who never have is that it's about as close to riding a motorcycle as you can come in a four wheel vehicle in terms of the speed, sound, and feel that you perceive. The Vantage was nice, but much more insulated and has a long way to go in ironing out the wrinkes. In reviews about the current 997 I hear the word "refinement" a lot. It's something you kind of take for granted when you own the car, but 35 years of trial and error with the 911 shows Porsche has learned a lot. I live in Arizona and almost burned my hand on some of the metal interior trim in the Vantage,(not pleasant)...also when parking the car I was told to be very careful "not to pull in too far" as i might scrape the bottom of the car. Whether or not these are things you have to tolerate with exotics/semi-exotics, the reality is most of these kinks have been worked out in the 911 which is an aspect that's really appreciated when you own the car. So in the end, it was great to have the opportunity to drive the Vantage, but I have absolutely no regrets about getting the 911 S. While being a great car, I don't think the Vantage is much of a threat to invade the 911's niche.