Aston Martin may be a James Bond icon, but that doesn’t give it license to coast on nostalgia. Does the new Vanquish live up to V12 expectations?
Not many cars bring up the old childhood joy and revelry these days. Maybe hardcore pickup trucks, the occasional lightning-quick EV, and ridiculous supercars can spark those long-lost feelings. But in my youth, automotive obsession followed the typical story. Dad loved cars, trucks, motorcycles, dirt bikes. And so here, perhaps not quite unexpectedly, we are today.
Back in those days, dad and I had one car and one car only that we referred to as „THE car“ above all others: the Aston Martin Vanquish. But actually, this story departs from traditional plotlines in a major way, because I grew up without movies or television to feed or fuel those burning desires.
One of the first films I ever saw in theaters, however, was Goldeneye, the first installment in Pierce Brosnan’s quartet of James Bond movies. Goldeneye hooked me with action and adventure, and the BMWs that probably seemed like a peculiar pivot to other moviegoers never affected me adversely, because I simply lacked context.Revisiting ancient automotive memories
By 2002, when Brosnan’s final Bond film, Die Another Day, hit theaters, I knew enough to get hooked on another thing entirely—and I don’t just mean Halle Berry or Rosamund Pike (nor John Cleese as Q). Instead, the Vanquish aka Vanish caught my eye, becoming truly seminal in my car-crazed teenage years. Once upon a time on San Vicente, a friendly owner even let me sit in his. And about a decade later, when my high-mileage E46 BMW started giving up the ghost, the mechanic’s shop I frequented also serviced a Vanquish.
So when Aston recently offered a chance to drive the rebooted Vanquish, now in its third iteration, those formative memories started flooding through my brain, taking me right back to the good-old days. Of course, I leapt at the opportunity.V12 it’s a fast one
The Commander Bond theme continued at the Sardinian hotel, Cala di Volpe, that starred alongside Roger Moore in The Spy Who Loved Me. The most memorable scene from that flick? When Moore pilots an underwater Lotus Esprit S1 as a submarine. Elon Musk unfortunately now owns that precise prop car, presumably in his quest to live out real-life Bond villainy, but I can now personally confirm that Cala di Volpe might top my personal list of most spectacular hotels on the planet. And also, just how far we’ve come from either a 1970s Lotus or even the first-generation Vanquish.
Most importantly, in contrast to the DB12 that ironically dropped the V12 engine option this year, the 2025 Vanquish sports an all-new, twin-turbocharged 5.2-liter V12. If that sounds too similar to the outgoing DBS, keep in mind that only the engine’s crankshaft pulley carries over—truly, this powerplant represents an insane level of dedication to R&D from Aston at this late date in the internal-combustion era. The new V12 also cranks out 823 horsepower and 738 lb-ft of torque thanks to forced induction. Those numbers best even the Valkyrie hypercar in both total and specific output.Welcome to the future of torque-by-gear and boost reserve
So much gutwrenching power immediately rears up from the lowest revs while piloting the Vanquish around tiny Sardinian roads, thanks to perfect throttle tip-in and instantaneous response made possible by a nifty „boost reserve“ system that overspins the turbos and retains pressure pre-manifold to reduce lag.
Yet despite a noticeable lack of turbo lag, this V12 still builds up the rushing sensation of boost that so many engines lack in the modern era. In fact, Aston implements torque-by-gear programming to prevent all 738 lb-ft (or 1,000 Newton-meters) from resulting in any sketchy wheelspin. Because yes, the Vanquish still sticks with a rear-wheel-drive layout, instead of swapping to all-wheel drive to help tame so much power.Sticking with rear-wheel drive
Give the drive mode dial a twist into Sport or Sport+ modes, though, and torque-by-gear goes right out the window. Grab the left paddle, climb up into the powerband, and prepare for shocking levels of shove that border on painful. The Vanquish leaps ahead, tearing up asphalt as only supercars can—truly on another level from the DB12 and DBX707 (though I cannot comment on the lighter, less powerful Vantage).
