First Drive: 2025 Aston Martin Vanquish

By Matt Bubbers

Seen under the Sardinian sun, Aston Martin’s all-new Vanquish doesn’t look like the lairy monster its spec sheet would suggest. With 824 horsepower and a somewhat frightening 738 lb-ft of torque on board, it outmuscles even Ferrari’s new 12Cilindri. Power comes from a 5.2-litre twin-turbo V12, which is the most powerful engine ever fitted to a front-engine Aston. Flat out it’ll do 344 km/h (214 mph). Those are serious numbers, numbers that launch the new Vanquish into the uppermost echelon of the GT arena.

Lawrence Stroll, the Canadian billionaire chairman of Aston Martin and the man masterminding the British brand’s latest turnaround attempt, has his sights set on Ferrari. At the unveiling of the Vanquish in Venice — filled with celebrities including George Clooney and Daniel Craig — Stroll asked rhetorically why the British company would go to Italy to show off its newest car. “We want to beat the locals,” he said. “There is this red team – I forgot their name.”

Stroll talks a big game about turning Aston into something like a British Ferrari, but if we’re being honest the all-new 2025 Vanquish is really the first model under his leadership that is a worthy rival to the red cars. (Aston’s DB12 is in Bentley Continental GT territory, while the Vantage is a wildly-entertaining alternative to a Porsche 911.) In terms of price and power and cylinder count, however, the Vanquish is almost in a dead-heat with Ferrari’s 12Cilindri. The Vanquish is, by far, the most ambitious new Aston yet devised under Stroll. They’re only going to build a maximum of 1,000 examples per year, so it’ll be a rare sight too.

The first big difference between the British car and its Italian rival is obvious before you even drive off. The Vanquish is beautiful. Aston Martin’s are always beautiful of course, that’s been one of the brand’s core selling points for decades now. But the Vanquish is on another level. It’s like a sculpture hewn from a single hunk of metal. At sunset, the way the light plays off the curvaceous surfaces is mesmerizing. You just want to stare at it.

With the 12Cilindri, Ferrari’s design team took a leap into the future. It’s colder and more clinical looking, representing a radical sci-fi aesthetic for the brand. (See also: the new Ferrari F80 supercar.) Meanwhile, the Vanquish has classically beautiful GT car proportions. It’s an automotive Adonis to Ferrari’s Syd Mead abstract futurism.

Proportionally it’s longer and more athletic looking than its predecessor, the DBS. That’s largely thanks to the newly stretched wheelbase, which is 80 millimetres longer than Aston’s current DB12. As a result, the cabin looks pushed back and the hood is elongated, making the car look more expensive, more exotic. Where the DBS was more like a hot-rodded version of the DB11, the Vanquish feels like something different and special.

And it needs to feel special to justify its eye-watering price: $514,800. (For reference, the Ferrari 12Cilindri is $554,439.)

On the road, the British car feels distinctly more luxurious and opulent than its Italian rival. The Aston’s cabin is absolutely covered in buttery-soft quilted and perforated leather from the roof on down. It feels spacious too, more so than the old DB11. A fitted luggage set made from saddle-leather is optionally available, and it would be almost rude not to tick that box.

The infotainment system is Aston’s latest, a two-screen setup the same as you’ll find on the DB12, new Vantage and updated DBX. It has Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, and it’s fine. It won’t blow you away with cutting edge tech, but it gets the job done, which is more than you could say of some older Astons.

Really though, this car is all about the engine. It’s like a velvet wrecking ball, smooth and devastatingly powerful. In GT mode, the car actually reduces the amount of torque at lower revs to make for a more linear, relaxing power delivery. In other modes, however, drivers can tap into the full 738 pound-feet of torque available from 2,500 to 5,000 rpm. It’s unrelenting. Unfortunately, the eight-speed gearbox isn’t as snappy as the Ferrari’s (and the paddle shifters aren’t as crisp or precise as I’d like) but it doesn’t matter because this motor is all muscle. The twin-turbo V12 feels meatier than the 12Cilindri’s naturally-aspirated engine, which, predictably, does its best work in the top half of its rev range. In the Aston though, you can pick almost any gear and it’ll surge forward with an earth-shaking, guttural rumble that becomes more metallic, violent and higher-pitched as the red-line approaches.

Without the benefit of the Ferrari’s rear-wheel steering system, the Vanquish feels very much like a grand grand-tourer it is. It’s long and feels it on tight, twisting roads, although the new e-diff certainly helps the car feel alert and responsive in slow and medium turns. It also does an incredible job of making 824 rear-drive horsepower feel usable, even exploitable on the road. The steering isn’t especially quick, but it’s perfectly matched to the chassis, weighting up nicely as the lateral g-forces build and offering up some useful feedback from the wheels.

The new Vanquish is the sort of machine you’ll want to just get in and point towards the horizon. Pack light and don’t look back. If your friends already have the 12Cilindri on order, then this Aston Martin is — for the first time — a genuinely good alternative to those red cars.