2025 Aston Martin Vanquish Volante | PH Review

A V12-powered Volante really ought to be fit for a king. Has Aston pulled it off?

By Nic Cackett / Wednesday, 23 July 2025 / Loading comments

Aston Martin, it proudly reminded us when revealing the new drop-top Vanquish, has been building Volante derivatives for 60 years now. But the firm's enviable reputation for tousling British hair goes back much further than that: including convertibles, dropheads and roadsters, it has been creating and selling open-top cars virtually since its inception. Granted, in the pre-war years, being exposed to the elements was pretty much par for the course, but the David Brown era - which laid the foundations for Aston’s lasting fame - spawned an array of what were quite often spectacularly pretty (and occasionally very rare) fabric hood wearers. King Charles, you’ll likely recall, has a DB6 Volante that runs on bioethanol. And a V8 Vantage Volante that hopefully doesn’t.

In other words, Aston Martin has a pretty good handle on what makes a very expensive convertible worth buying. On the one hand, it is the same heightened sensation of your immediate surroundings - and the car’s inimitable place in them - that makes a comparatively humble MX-5 so appealing. On the other, it is very much about showing off. And it is possible that no previous Aston, even in the rarefied company of the Volante family tree, is quite so adept at showing off as the new Vanquish. There is the fabulously over-the-top way it looks, of course. But there is also the distant drumbeat of Aston’s now familiar boast: according to it, this is the world’s fastest and most powerful front-engined convertible.

It can claim to be both these things thanks to the new 5.2-litre V12 carried over from the coupe, which outputs 835hp and 738lb ft of torque via an eight-speed ZF automatic. If those numbers still seem inordinately large written down, then you’ve arrived (again) at the salient point of the Vanquish: this is meant as a flagship in the truest sense of the word. It is HMS Victory, the cylinder count and turbochargers a proxy for 104 guns over three decks. Yes, to blow the opposition out of the water when it comes to it - but also to provide an overwhelming, sabre-rattling show of force. The Volante, being all louvres and flush curves and leathery innards, projects power from any distance. Sat in the thing with the V12 idling, you can practically feel your gaze becoming Nelson-like in its steeliness. A modern-day oligarch ought to feel right at home.

Aston will hope not to try customer patience with the sort of Apple CarPlay associated niggles that our test car initially suffered (this is the second time a lack of 4G signal has dented the seamlessness you’d expect of Ultra functionality), although getting comfortable with the Vanquish’s dimensions on minor UK roads is likely to be the more pressing issue for most. That 80mm of additional length between the A pillar and front wheelbase has worked wonders for the model’s cab-rearward proportions, but the nose seems further away than ever with the new K-fold roof lowered and the world peering in. Unless you’re accustomed to parking real-life battleships, it’ll take a moment for nearly 5 metres of length and more than 2 metres of width to seem wieldy.

It helps to have a 5.2-litre grease gun to hand. The calibration of the V12 has not changed between coupe and cabrio, which means that GT mode retains its focus on drivability. As suspected, this suits driving in the UK for all those moments when dawdling seems advisable, although it’s fair to say that the Vanquish treats comparative neutrality a bit like Finland used to: beneath the platitudes, it’s armed to the teeth. There is plenty of low-end V12 gargle to remind you of this fact, alongside the giant bellows that is the arrival of so much torque - even allowing for the respectable hush that the Volante achieves under its insulated hood.

Aston is particularly proud of the roof’s 260mm stack height when folded beneath the tonneau cover, which helps to preserve the Vanquish’s raked profile - although it’s worth noting that we drove the Volante with its fairly substantial wind deflector straddling the car’s rear cross brace. Much as it does in the coupe, the latter helps to define the storage areas provided (i.e. the space that would be filled with seats in the DB12), which can be kitted out with saddle-style luggage bags, should you wish to add to your option spend. Granted, these look as twee as a shortbread biscuit tin, but when the already smallish boot shrinks to a measly 187 litres with the roof stowed, they might be worth considering if your plans for the Vanquish are continental in scale.

Stowage aside, there’s precious little to suggest that a Volante owner would suffer for not choosing the coupe. Aston was adamant in the build-up that it had worked to nullify the usual dynamic sacrifices required of its bonded aluminium platform, pointing to an overall kerbweight gain of 95kg as evidence of its success. This difference, at any rate, can be attributed to the usual suspects: the roof mechanism, rollover protection and a different gauge of extrusion used in the sills - but the chassis hardware remains unchanged, including the sophisticated Bilstein DTX dampers. The settings have been altered to account for the change in mass and a marginal rearward shift of the Vanquish’s weight distribution, but only with the intention of replicating the coupe’s established character.

For the most part, this is how it plays out behind the wheel. A distant memory of the previous Vanquish Volante, powered by the old V12 and a similar set of principles, can be put to bed immediately. That car suffered for its narrower, transactional relationship with the road as Aston tried to make sense of 600-odd horsepower and the requirement for a properly multifaceted personality; save for the 14 seconds it takes to dispense with the roof, it shares precious little with its torsionally stiffer, spiritual successor. In 2025, the Volante fills out the original brief much more handsomely, playing the considerate, capable grand tourer right up to the point where you’d prefer it to drive like something else. Namely, something that has 835hp and unfettered access to sunsets.

Happily, Aston having chosen Yorkshire for the UK launch, there was plenty of time to experience both. Roof back on (16 seconds this way, up to 31 mph) to account for rain, and the Volante hunkers down to the job of cosseting you. Like the coupe, it is significantly better at doing this at 60 mph than 30 mph - but you forgive the odd moment of brittleness around town for the way it unfurls in GT mode at the national limit, marshalling its wheel control and roll rate to make effortlessness seem like its own kind of pay-off. Similarly, it’s hard not to marvel at the E-diff on sodden roads; not because you’re inclined to take liberties with its cleverness in the wet, but because it is so good at assuaging the kind of background anxiety that traditionally results from so much torque exiting through a single axle.

Ultimately though, like a grasshopper lazily circling a Venus flytrap, it’s only a matter of time before the mesmeric V12 grabs hold of your leg and pulls you in. Typically, you’ll preempt the moment by a) selecting Sport mode and b) going sans roof. It’s pretty much nirvana from then on. The quality of the throttle response and its free-spinning appetite for revs really do belie the scale of the engine, yet its colossal presence is all part of the absurdly moreish appeal, as is the soundtrack, aided here by the optional titanium exhaust. Presumably it is not as full-throated as it might have been - but with the crescendo swirling around you, coaxing the lengthiest possible stay in shorter ratios, you will hardly think to complain.

Ditto any occasion or corner where it occurs to you that you might have been quicker or more confident in the coupe. As promised, the Volante barely acknowledges its structural deficit, though there are fleeting instances where it seems to take fractionally longer to settle or turn in than its lighter, inevitably tauter sibling. But to what end this difference? Precious little on the road. The balance and deftness and approachability - the latter being the biscuit-taker, alongside the prodigiously good carbon-ceramic brakes— are resolutely in the same ballpark, and that, one imagines, will be easily sufficient for anyone paying circa £400k for the convertible Vanquish.

The fact of that price does loom over the Volante somewhat, not least for the hefty six-figure saving you’d make by choosing the likes of the newly electrified and supremely pleasant Bentley Continental GTC. But Gaydon’s prescient investment in the V12 and its associated contention that Ferrari must be met head-on has resulted not just in a genuine rival for the 12Cilindri, but arguably the best Aston Martin in a generation. Save for Maranello’s Spider, there are precious few cars that can even claim to be on the same glorious page. A Volante for the end times, in other words - and therefore quite possibly cheap at twice the price.

SPECIFICATION | 2025 Aston Martin Vanquish Volante

Engine: 5,204cc, twin-turbo, V12
Transmission: 8-speed automatic, rear-wheel drive
Power (hp): 835@6,500rpm
Torque (lb ft): 738@2,500-5,000rpm
0-62mph: 3.4 seconds
Top speed: 214mph
Weight: 1,880kg (dry)
MPG: TBC (awaiting homologation)
CO2: TBC (awaiting homologation)
Price: TBC (£360,000-£400,000)