2025 Aston Martin Vanquish Delivers Right-Foot Brutality
Aston Martin is bringing its Vanquish nameplate back to the market with a 5.2-liter V12 under its hood that makes 824 hp and 738 lb-ft of torque.
Aston Martin says it’s capping production of the Vanquish at 1,000 examples a year, globally. Roughly a third are earmarked for North America.
The Aston Martin Vanquish will start at $434,000, including the $5,000 destination and delivery charge.
Engines are getting smaller. Displacements are going down, and cylinders are getting cut away by the proverbial bandsaw of emissions compliance. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, especially because combustion engines are more power-dense than ever, but at the cost of the smooth operation and audible ecstasy of high-cylinder-count mills.
Well, the folks at Aston Martin aren’t shooing away from V12s just yet and might have added the most interesting Vanquish to its roster to date, considering the greater landscape of the car world.
The beating heart of this Vanquish is, of course, the aforementioned V12. Displacing 5.2 liters, it is essentially an evolution of the engine that powered the DBS.
The team at Aston Martin heavily revised the power unit but kept some loved antiquities like its port fuel injection system intact. A revised intake manifold increased air and fuel tumbling into the combustion chamber.
Helping move air into the cylinders is still a pair of turbochargers. As for how much an improvement this engine is over its DBS predecessor, we can go to the dyno sheet: 824 hp and 738 lb-ft of torque. That’s over 100 more horsepower than the DBS Superleggera’s 715 ponies. Power moves through a ZF 8HP95 transaxle before traveling exclusively to the rear wheels.
That translates to right-foot brutality. The Aston Martin Vanquish lives up to the expectations, and it’s a personal-luxury missile. Despite poor road conditions during our drive, power delivery comes easily, and quickly.
Albeit perfectly manageable, the Vanquish’s siren song from its V12 might make you push your right foot a little further than posted speed limits might allow and draw your shifts out until the V12’s redline. For what it’s worth, Aston says this Vanquish can stretch its legs to 214 mph, which we didn’t test—but it does feel like that’s capable.
Unfortunately, it takes more than just a potent powerplant to make a standout machine, especially when you’re approaching a half-million dollar price tag. That powertrain is stuffed in a large, bonded aluminum chassis that takes advantage of the powertrain—and vice versa—while also giving you the comfort of a grand tourer.
This is not a small car: 192.5 inches long and 83.5 inches wide with the mirrors out. That’s about the same footprint as a 2025 Bentley Continental GT, which has space for two extra passengers. Or, for even better context for the masses, the Vanquish is about three inches longer than a ’25 Ford Mustang.
This size doesn’t exactly translate into the road feel—at least, when you’re navigating roads large enough to handle its footprint. Dense city centers with narrow roads might pose some tense moments.
In twisty corners, the Vanquish turns in with precision, and at times might even be too eager to respond to driver inputs. On center, the steering wheel responds well to your input and translates that almost directly to the 275/35-21 Pirelli P Zeros in the front.
Carbon-ceramic rotors sit at every corner and are brought to a halt by six-piston front and four-piston rear calipers. As you’d expect from carbon-ceramic rotors, there isn’t a ton of initial bite at low speed, and with cold brakes. But braking performance overall is good, with a firm but easy-to-modulate brake pedal.
As you’d expect from a luxury grand tourer, road noise and wind noise are mitigated, aside from the exhaust trickling into the cabin. Rolling down the windows helps further, but there is still some audio enhancement to help the V12 overcome that gas particulate filter that dampens some of its notes.
When you’re listening to the V12, you’ll be stuffed inside a quirky but lavish interior. The cabin is up to the task of its price tag in just about every metric. The standard seats are comfortable and lightly bolstered. While the materials all feel premium, the mirror and seat bolster controls are a little idiosyncratic but are easily learned.
Most importantly, at least to some, the infotainment system is perfectly usable. Apple CarPlay worked without any hitch, and the 10.25-inch touchscreen is the right size for easy use. The digital instrument cluster is also well laid out and works well. The steering wheel controls might be the weakest link of the Vanquish’s interior but, like any car’s oddities, can be mastered with time.
The bigger picture is that this front-mid-engine, V12-powered, two-seat grand tourer is a dying breed of cars that were built to do everything well, which includes having curb appeal. Its only real rival is Ferrari’s aptly named 12Cilindri. Both of these cars take different paths to the same, similarly priced goal.
Aston says there will only be up to 1,000 of these Vanquish cars built a year, of which roughly a third are slated for North America.
Orders are already sold out until “pretty deep” into 2025, the automaker says. That means you might want to reach out to your local Aston Martin contact to start ordering your Vanquish.
The Vanquish starts at $434,000, including a $5,000 destination charge, but that’s before you start personalizing your machine. It would be surprising if even one Vanquish rolls out of the Aston Martin workshop without a single extra option tacked onto the window sticker.
Would you pick the Aston Martin Vanquish over the Ferrari 12Cilindri? Tell us your thoughts below.