The Aston Martin Vanquish is More Style than Substance
I love grand touring sports cars. If it’s comfortable, fast, and fun, sign me up. But the Aston Martin Vanquish, despite its looks, just doesn’t quite hit the spot. While the 2019 model was easy to love, the upcoming 2025 Vanquish misses the mark on a variety of fronts.
Derivative looks make the Aston Martin Vanquish a letdown
Admittedly, there are only so many ways to design a mid-engine sports car. Even with that in mind, it feels like the 2025 Aston Martin Vanquish has lost its identity. Since its inception, Aston has carried an elegant, refined design language. Now, though, the Vanquish feels like every other mid-engine supercar, right down to the awkward grille opening bulbous fender flares.
Sure, it looks fast, and athletic, and all those other ‘supercar’ superlatives apply. But Aston Martin has always been about substance matched with style, and this feels like a step in the wrong direction.
Mercedes power in the 2025 Vanquish
In addition to its humdrum design, the 2025 Vanquish gets its engine from Mercedes-AMG. The 4.4-liter twin-turbo V8 pairs with a pair of electric motors in a plug-in hybrid format. That means you’ll be able to cruise through town in silence on EV power before unleashing that Mercedes V8 on the open road.
A similar powertrain sits in the Valhalla, but don’t expect the same 1,000-horsepower performance from the upcoming Vanquish. Rather than an ultra-low-volume million-dollar hypercar, the Vanquish is aimed at a more modest market. Priced at a mere $300,000, this poverty-spec mid-engine Aston will get a more pedestrian 700 horsepower instead.
The 2025 Vanquish versus the 2019 version
Looking back to the previous Vanquish, it’s hard to understand what Aston Martin is doing here. Mid-engine sports cars are balanced, yes. But the Vanquish was previously the British brand’s exemplary grand tourer. A high-performance, luxury-focused sports car that could, despite its $300,000 price tag, take you from New York to Miami and back in superior comfort.
It was a perfectly-proportioned thing of beauty, complete with the signature Aston Martin grille design and a festival of sweeping, elegant curves.
It also held a screaming V12 engine shooting out 580 horsepower and 465 pound-feet of torque. A guttural roar at startup and a howling sound at redline, the Vanquish V12 was the epitome of Aston’s excellence. It also sent all of that power to the rear via an eight-speed automatic transmission.
But the 2019 Vanquish was also a refined thing of beauty. A supple ride defied its outdated platform while remaining both sharp and planted throughout a corner. It was, in the truest sense, a do-it-all grand tourer. The 2025 version is not.
Aston claims that the cabin of the new Vanquish will be bigger than its other mid-engine cars. But the versatile experience of the previous model will be hard to recreate with the new engine layout. Sure, that back seat in the 2019 model was minuscule. But it was a great place to land a bag or two for easy access while on a road trip.
It’s concessions like this that make it hard to believe that the new Vanquish can live up to its grand touring heritage.
When will the 2025 Aston Martin Vanquish arrive?
Early speculation says that the 2025 Aston Martin Vanquish will land in late summer of 2024. We have no doubt that the initial production run will sell out upon pre-order. However, as of right now, Aston Martin offers no specific dates for either pre-orders or initial delivery.
