A company is making new noses for the Aston Martin Vantage

It is available from a new company in the Aston bespoking business, Revenant Automotive, and, as the pictures show, replaces the Vantage’s composite front bumper and grille with a new composite (or carbon-fibre) section intended to be less, er, challenging to the eyes.

When introduced on the new Vantage in 2018 design chief Marek Reichman’s hunter grille had an unquestionably racy edge to it, but, with its huge aperture and industrial-chic finish, was not everyone’s cup of tea. At the time we said it looked like something had fallen off.

At the launch of the twin-turbo V8 Vantage roadster earlier this year Aston recognised the look was controversial by making a more traditional vaned grille an option on all Vantage models, though still in the same gapingly large opening.

With its retro-fit nose cone Revenant goes  a step further by splitting the grille into two: a smaller upper section, still in the iconic shape of the Aston mouth, and a narrow slit of hexagonal mesh below it which supports the splitter. Revenant says its new front end is more “proportional” to the  car and  more elegant. Revenant is an independent outfit and the new nose is not endorsed by Aston.

For sure, the result is much less “Marmite” and much more generic, and will doubtless please people because of it, but it is always sad when design boldness goes unappreciated. We suspect that in decades to come it will be the Vantages with the original hunter look that will be the sought-after cars.