New Aston Martin Vantage gets huge power boost
Updated interior is the highlight - but this will almost certainly be the quickest road-going Vantage of all time...
We know that car prices have risen hard in the last few years, but power outputs seem to have soared even quicker. The freshly revised Aston Martin Vantage is very stylish proof of the trend. We don’t have finalised pricing yet, but company insiders say to expect it to be around the £165,000 mark - so £20,000 more than the outgoing Vantage F1 Edition. This is a sizeable increase - although the one on the other side of the bang-per-buck scale is even bigger: the Vantage is now going to be making 656hp from its AMG V8.
For perspective, that’s a huge 128hp more than the F1 Edition made from its own AMG donk. Going further back, it means the new Vantage has 276hp more than the 4.3-litre Vantage that launched in 2005. Given that the Bank of England’s official inflation calculator reckons that Vantage’s £79,995 price tag would be £136,000 in today’s deflated pounds, the supplement being asked over that for the new car represents pretty good value for what is a 72 per cent increase in horsepower.
Of course, few people are likely to be cross-shopping the brand-new Vantage against a 19-year-old example, so a more relevant comparison is with the wider market. Where the 2025 Vantage has leapfrogged cars including the AMG GT 63 - which uses the same base engine - and even the mighty Porsche 911 Turbo S. Yet while both of those rivals use all-wheel drive, the Aston still directs its entire output through its rear axle. Well before driving it, we already know the Vantage is going to be an absolute beast.
Although the new V8 shares its capacity and AMG bloodline with the outgoing Vantage’s it has been given numerous upgrades to deliver the power increase. The most obvious is new turbos, but we’re also told it has a heavily revised top end as well as the cooling improvements detailed below. As well as the headline power figure, torque has risen substantially too – with 590lb ft available from 2,750rpm to 6,000rpm the 2025 Vantage has 85lb ft more than the 2024 version.
As with the DB12, the Vantage has now been given a shorter final drive to improve acceleration through its standard eight-speed ZF autobox; there will never be another manual Vantage. Aston is quoting a 3.4-second 0-60mph time and a 202mph top speed for the Coupe, that acceleration number identical to the one claimed for the limited-run 2022 V12 Vantage. We will be surprised if the turned-up V8 doesn’t prove itself to be considerably quicker when unleashed in the real world, and the fastest road-going Vantage ever. Even though it has 34hp less than the V12 it has 35lb ft more, and is 190kg lighter on Aston’s numbers.
Not that there are big exterior changes to sell the huge increase in thrust. Aston’s argument is that Vantage buyers already loved the way the car looked, and so the changes are both limited and carefully considered. The most obvious is at the front of the car, with the new Vantage getting redesigned LED headlights fitting around reshaped front wings. The new front bumper has been given a substantially bigger radiator grille, this chosen for reasons of function first and form second - according to Simon Newton, Aston’s Director of Vehicle Performance, airflow is improved by 29 per cent and there is a full 50 per cent increase in the amount reaching the revised car’s bigger radiators and intercoolers. The upshot is a car that could apparently work as a Formula 1 safety car without any additional cooling upgrades, should it get the nod to carry on with its predecessor’s duties.
Other changes will take some spotting. The Vantage now sits on 22-inch forged alloys as standard, and the body width has been extended by 30mm to cover a wider track. The front side vents have been redesigned, and have gained DB12-style strakes. The giveaway difference at the rear is the arrival of small air vents on each side of the bumpers, and the quad exhaust tailpipes have also grown in diameter.
Much more radical remodelling has taken place where it was really needed - inside the cabin. The outgoing Vantage’s interior had some nice touches, but struggled with the ergonomic confusion of trying to fit too much switchgear into too little space. And let’s just not mention the thinly disguised hand-me-down Mercedes UI system and its awkward non-touch screen.
The new Vantage has been given almost the same redesign that turned the DB11 into the DB12, sharing its larger sister’s gently inclined centre console and touch-sensitive infotainment screen. The physical switchgear layout is identical in both cars. The 2025 Vantage has also lost its predecessor’s three-part digital dashboard for a single screen. Aston’s trademark P/R/D/N transmission buttons have gone – replaced by a stubby gear lever – a loss in terms of character if not function. Good news, though – the chance to see the new car up close in a photography studio proved that the metal steering wheel gearshift paddles offer much more resistance than the too-light ones of the DB12 we drove last year.
Beyond the shock-and-awe spec, we’re also promised a significantly improved driving experience, with the need to maintain driveability given the size of the power increase. “The changes we’ve made to the Vantage are greater than the ones we made to the DB11 to create the DB12,” promises Newton. There have been small but significant structural upgrades, and although the overall increase in torsional rigidity is only quoted at seven per cent, Newton says that in key areas including suspension attachment points it is much better than that. Adaptive dampers will remain standard, with these offering a much greater range of force adjustment than in the old car.
As with the DB12, the new Vantage loses a separate selection for its powertrain and chassis settings, now having a single dynamic controller for all functions through five modes: Wet, Sport, Sport Plus, Track and Individual. (The lack of a DB12 equivalent Comfort setting is an indication of the different priorities of both cars.) Changing these will adjust the engine and transmission mapping, damper stiffness and steering weight as well as tweaking the reactions of the torque biasing rear differential. Newton says this will have less edgy responses in the gentler modes, the outgoing car always felt like it was straining at the leash. The smarter vehicle dynamics brain and stability control are now helped by an ultra-quick six-axis accelerometer to help maintain order when the engine’s full firepower gets deployed.
Given how much the DB12 impressed it’s fair to say that expectations are sky-high for the new Vantage. Here’s hoping it can deliver on them.
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