Aston Martin Vanquish first drive review

What is it?

Supercars like the new £190,000 Aston Martin Vanquish deliver comfort in several different guises, the least important of which is the one that matters most in a Rolls, Mercedes or Ford Mondeo. 

This is never to suggest that noise refinement, cosseting seats and ride comfort aren’t crucial in any new Aston; they indisputably are. But having driven the new Aston Vanquish its clear true supercar comfort comes in a tightly wrapped parcel containing high-speed stability, quick and uncorrupted steering and top-class levels of grip, chassis balance and brake retardation, all of them deployed through quick-acting and easily modulated controls. 

With these advantages, a reasonable driver feels able to use the car to its potential. Without them, it becomes fundamentally slow, whatever the power. Aston has always been good at chassis development. Here we have an ideal front/mid-engined coupé with a slight rearward weight bias, midships seating for the front occupants and adjustable double wishbone adaptive suspension.

The new Aston Martin Vanquish has its 565bhp 6.0-litre V12 lowered by 19mm, and the overall result is the best road-going big Aston yet. It betters even the One-77 at a fraction of the price.

What is it like?

There is no hiding that its proportions are almost exactly those of the DB9. The aluminium box-section ‘VH’ platform is now in its fourth (and most changed) iteration for the Aston Martin Vanquish.

Aston has enhanced its muscles and haunches, provided it with a rear-end shape that excuses the need for an spoiler and given it a set of aerodynamic carbonfibre blades. The new tailpipes are beautiful, and so are the carbonfibre side sill extensions. The typically Aston Martin side vents ahead of the front doors are rethought and beautifully expressed. But the turret and window shapes tell you that this is still fundamentally a DB9.

When you approach it to drive, the Vanquish is the most welcoming of cars. The butterfly doors open not just outwards but also upwards, away from any kerb. They’re long but not particularly heavy and will remain open at any angle, aiding access. 

The interior of our red test car was trimmed in high-quality tan leather, and a glance at the options sheet (£20,000 worth of those) showed why this cabin was so easy on the eye. You pay extra for the One-77 steering wheel (£995), the heavyweight carpet (£695), the herringbone carbonfibre dashboard (£1995), the seat and shelf quilting (£2495), the carbon paddles (£1995), the reversing camera (£995) the carbonfibre exterior roof panel (£1000) and lots more. Outside, you’ve bought your 20-spoke forged 20-inch alloy wheels for £1995, with another £995 for red brake disc calipers. 

Such inflated prices can easily damage my initial good feelings and its cockpit, especially when I noticed that, as a customer for this £191,000 car, I’d be slugged an extra £995 for a reversing camera and an extra £295 to upgrade my alarm with volumetric and tilt sensors. The argument goes buyers of cars like these don’t notice an extra £20k on top of their £191k, but if true, why the bargain basement £95 framing of the pricing? It made me want to know, quite urgently, what a Vanquish would be like without any options fitted.

As you slide into the elegant, low-set bucket seat, it’s obvious Aston’s engineers have worked hard to provide more room. The fascia still has a prominent centre console, but it looms less than it did in the DBS and carries more design sophistication. The ancillary controls have been refined and simplified into easy-to-use, well labelled buttons.

The door panels have been reshaped to allow more elbow freedom and there’s more footwell room. It’s more driver-friendly and sets a convenience standard that few in the £190k bracket meet. 

At the base of a switch panel in the One-77 steering wheel’s vertical spoke are two well identified buttons, one to adjust the suspension (Normal, Sport and Track) and one for throttle response, exhaust note, gearbox regime and steering effort.

Push the glass key into its central holder to start the engine. It bursts into life with a rather unnecessary, testosterone-driven blip. Select first via the six-speed automatic gearbox’s long-travel fixed paddle on the right and the car burbles smoothly, moving fluently through its gears even if you’re changing at 2500rpm while the engine warms. 

This is a consummate demonstration of the refinement of a top-class ‘normal’ automatic, better governed than ever by new-era electronics for even faster gearshifts and quicker paddle responses. 

In its new double variable valve timing form, power climbs from 510bhp in the DBS to 565bhp, while 457lb ft of torque is available at 5500rpm. And this in a car 60kg lighter than recent iterations, at 1739kg, ready to go. Small wonder that the top speed is 183mph and the 0-62mph sprint occupies 4.1sec.

Driving the Aston is easy, but far from trivial. It’s potent and feels special, but also very intuitive. You sit low, sighting down the long bonnet, and when you squeeze the accelerator or move a paddle, you get exactly what you’re expecting. Hundreds of hours of refinement have gone into this car, and you feel their result in every single driver movement, from a sudden application of full throttle (you get a rapid response from gearbox and engine, whereas others in this bracket take ‘thinking time’) to a gentle halt (you, the driver, decide how much the nose will dive and how quickly it will recover).

It feels fast, if not quite as explosive as the pricier Ferrari F12, the Aston’s nearest rival. The Vanquish is precision itself on an ultra-smooth, where despite its size, you can understeer or oversteer it at will in corners up to about 60mph. If you overcook it in faster going, the stability control will come to your rescue, unless you’ve managed to wash off enough speed with the mighty carbon-ceramic brakes, for which you don’t get charged extra. This feels a big car for a circuit, but once you get into a rhythm, it is a match for some much more track-focused cars.

Should I buy one?

The Aston Martin Vanquish’s real party trick might not be recognised by every buyer: its awe-inspiring composure over rough and difficult back roads. You sit there, cosseted and supported in the bucket seat, making tiny steering dabs merely to follow the road, not (as with others) to compensate for suspension movement. 

This is the version of comfort I was talking about the start. This Aston stays magnificently flat, resisting pitch and roll-rock in a way that is highly unusual for any sporting GT.

This, truly, is a car built for British roads, and if supercar buyers value such things, they will laud the new Vanquish above all for this.

Aston Martin Vanquish

Price £189,995; 0-62mph 4.1sec; Top speed 183mph; Economy 19.6mpg (combined); CO2 335g/km; Kerb weight; 1739kg; Engine layout V12 5935cc, petrol; Installation Front, longitudinal, RWD; Power 565bhp at 6750rpm; Torque 457lb ft at 5500rpm; Gearbox 6-spd automatic