Aston Martin Vanquish review: Sure in its grip, fluid in its ride
Who would be a car manufacturer right now? From blank sheet of paper to showroom floor is a five-year design and development process, and then — if you’re lucky via a face-lift at the mid-point — you have an eight-year lifecycle in which to recoup your investment and make a return.
In some ways, it’s a bit like making a fine wine: grow the grapes, press the juice, lay it down and then collect your pay-off later. Save for one thing: every 18 months for the past five years somebody in government isn’t re-writing your recipe for Chardonnay. But that’s been the lot of the automotive sector.
Five years ago was five UK prime ministers back. And each has tinkered with the fundamentals of car design in the meantime, with changing diktats as to the future of motoring. All new cars for sale in the UK needed to be fully electric by 2035, then 2030, then 2035 again, and now — apparently — 2030 again, but with previously cancelled hybrids allowed for a bit longer. Perhaps.
And that’s just here in the UK. There’s no regulatory alignment either with Europe — which has stuck with 2035 from the off — or the USA, currently undergoing a bonfire of all things eco and set for an oil-drilling spree under the incoming Trump administration. Which must have made for an interesting chat over a McDonald’s with First Buddy and Tesla founder, Elon Musk.
So, where does a carmaker place its bets? How many platforms dare you develop, and how might you turn a dollar?
Well, if you’re Aston Martin, you double down on the status quo and declare your intent to stay in the petrol-powered game until or unless you no longer can, or there are no customers at the door. And, whisper it, that could prove to be a strategy as smart as it is glorious. Witness the arrival of the most potent flagship in its 111-year history, the mighty new Vanquish.
And when we say new, we mean all-new. A ground-up, just-landed 5.2-litre twin-turbo V12 powerplant, sitting within a bespoke chassis awash with tech, wrapped in carbon-fibre bodywork that is at once taut, muscular and chiselled and yet lithe with feline grace and beauty. From Bond-esque nose to new ‘Shield’ tail. You can, if you wish, just sit and look at it — that’s almost enough.
Bit of a waste, though, not to spark it up, because the visceral nature of the audio experience when fully lit engulfs even the excellence of a first-rate, 15-speaker Bowers and Wilkins sound system, tailored within the freshly opulent cockpit. At idle, there’s a lovely bass rumble that hints at what lies within. But in the name of all that is holy, when hooked up on an open road under full throttle load, the noise that emanates from the vast quad tailpipes is as though ripped from the chests of the Gods themselves.
I know this because we’re in the mountains of Sardinia to try the car at Aston’s behest, and a little closer to said Gods than would ordinarily be the case, amid a maze of climbs, turns and twistbacks with varying drops to the left or to the right, though rarely a soul for company.
Initially, aware of a mammoth 824bhp under my right foot and a nigh £333k price tag, I’m a bit more hesitant than I’d normally be, and it’s as though the car senses that. My inputs are not smooth, so I’m rewarded with occasionally jumpy responses, all-or-nothing throttle response and, for all the finery around me in this decadent cabin, I don’t feel at home at all.
But familiarity breeds content, and having crossed the mountains one way in pursuit of lunch, come the return I’m emboldened to press on with more conviction. And the Vanquish comes alive, albeit in the most brutal, even feral, way imaginable. For all its modernity and beauty, this new Aston Martin flagship is, it transpires, gloriously, magnificently old school.
The car’s character can be changed, fundamentally, by switching damper and drive modes between GT, Sport and Sport+. GT rides comfortably and drives quickly, Sport+ rides hard and unleashes the fire within, Sport lives somewhere in the middle. But you are best served, on these often-bumpy roads, straddling the extremes: GT ride settings, Sport+ power delivery. Thus configured, it was one of the drives of my life…
I committed as I rarely have on a public road, and this brute gave its all: sure in its grip, fluid in its ride, quick to change direction faithfully and then power delivery that rips the air from your lungs. And all with an end-of-days soundtrack you might have imagined lost to the will-they, won’t-they electric age.
If we ever reach the point where we say “they don’t make them like they used to,” then this Aston Martin Vanquish might well stand as the petrol-powered GT supercar zenith. Lucky are the maximum 1,000 souls a year who’ll get to own one.
Aston Martin Vanquish
5.2-litre V12 Twin-Turbo // 824bhp // 738lb/ft // 0-60mph in 3.2 secs // 214mph // Range 312g/km // 20.7mpg // From £332,800
The post Aston Martin Vanquish review: Sure in its grip, fluid in its ride appeared first on Attitude.
