Driving the 2025 Aston Martin Vantage Coupe

There are 5 drive modes within the 2025 Aston Martin Vantage coupe: Sport, Sport Plus, Monitor, Particular person, and Moist.

No Regular. No Consolation. No Eco. No level in pretending anybody goes to drive this automotive in a tame method.

A 656-horsepower twin-turbo V8 below the hood, rear-wheel drive (RWD), and a chassis constructed for pure athleticism make Aston’s signature automotive a brutal instrument with a single function. Which makes sitting in site visitors in a single really feel a bit like strolling an indignant guard canine by way of a youngsters’s party: You’re simply restraining this factor.

You’d want race observe entry to check even 20% of what the Vantage can do. I had the distinctive expertise late this summer season of driving it back-to-back with a Mazda MX-5 Miata, studying the visceral distinction between a automotive constructed to be most gratifying at authorized speeds and, nicely, a automotive used as the protection automotive in Method 1 racing.

However I discovered the Aston’s candy spot, not at a observe day, however on an extended, winding highway that coursed by way of Northern Virginia horse nation on a brilliant Sunday morning when the leaves confirmed the primary hints of turning. Few issues clean out the soul and gradual the heartbeat like a fantastic drive in a automotive with vigorous dealing with, with nobody else round.

There’s a button on the middle console of the Vantage that opens a baffle within the exhaust to make it louder, in case you’re not drawing sufficient consideration in your highlighter-yellow quarter-million-dollar supercar. However this factor is at its finest when there’s nobody round.

Which Trim Stage

Aston Martin builds the Vantage Coupe in common and S type, in addition to a pair of roadsters with the identical two trims. The distinction is generally a matter of tuning. They get the identical 4.0-liter twin turbo V8 — a reworked Mercedes-AMG engine. However Aston credit the Vantage with a 3.6-second dash to 60 and the Vantage S with 3.4 seconds.

My tester had loads of costly choices, from a Bowers & Wilkins audio system (a $10,300 improve) to a $14,100 paint job (in Cosmopolitan Yellow). See the window sticker within the gallery beneath for exact particulars.

Favourite Function

The most effective options of the 2025 Aston Martin Vantage all must do with sound.

The electrical car (EV) age has scrambled our understanding of pace. The quickest automobiles I’ve pushed in the previous few years have nearly all been electrical. I just lately piloted a Lucid Air sedan that may get from zero to 60 sooner than the Vantage, although it seats 5 and appears an order of magnitude much less dramatic.

Downshift the Vantage and open it up a bit on a winding highway, although, and also you gained’t care. All of the noise and drama of inner combustion make zero-to-60 really feel sooner in a V8-powered automotive than it does in an objectively sooner EV. I discovered myself utilizing that ridiculous button that opens the baffle with nobody else round as a result of I needed the sonorous theater of an actual, wonderful, old style engine.

Years of testing automobiles have left me a agency believer within the electrical future. However this automotive jogs my memory what’s so deeply pleasing in regards to the gasoline-powered current.

The Bowers & Wilkins Halo encompass sound system, with 3D audio system within the headliner, is among the finest I’ve ever encountered in a automotive. It’s simpler for audio engineers to tune an ideal audio expertise for simply two seats, and all 1,170 watts of this one are tuned astoundingly nicely. 

What It’s Prefer to Drive

Automotive journalists like to argue over whether or not the Vantage is a pure sports activities automotive or a Grand Tourer — that’s, an expensive, lovely 2-seater as highly effective as a sports activities automotive however barely extra tuned for consolation.

A rustic drive within the Vantage gained’t settle the query. A giant, twin-turbo V8 in entrance of you placing down all its energy to outsized wheels behind you feels deeply, nearly subliminally highly effective. That deep, rumbling exhaust be aware underlines it in a means you may really feel in your bones. It’s exhausting to not really feel it is a pure efficiency automotive.

Dealing with is vigorous at authorized speeds. Paradoxically, steering could also be heavier than what you’re used to in a household sedan, however that feels extra alive and responsive. Dynamic torque vectoring means the load of the steering wheel feels critical in your fingers, however the automotive’s response is lithe and whiplike-quick.

Customary Michelin Pilot Sport S tires glue it to the highway. Brake really feel is progressive, however ought to it is advisable to stand on it, the Vantage can cease in a stunningly quick distance.

I didn’t get observe time, however didn’t need it. The Vantage cries for an undulating nation highway and feels most at residence there. It’s possible you’ll even end up turning off that extraordinary sound system to take pleasure in letting the automotive sing you residence.

Inside Consolation and Know-how

The 2025 Vantage’s inside follows a design scheme frequent to supercars, however one that’s fading right this moment. It seats the driving force and passenger in deep wells, separated by a tall middle console full of buttons and switches, making a cockpit-like really feel.

It’s what you need in a automotive this highly effective. The switchgear is substantial and heavy, conveying a sense of high quality. The central touchscreen just isn’t overly giant, exhibiting that the drive is your leisure.

It does, nonetheless, have a high-tech function nearly no different automotive available on the market this yr can supply. Aston Martin is the one automaker on the planet, thus far, to signal on to the subsequent era of Apple’s CarPlay cellphone projection system.

Referred to as CarPlay Extremely, it enables you to management each of the automotive’s show screens — the driving force’s show and the central unit — as projections of your cellphone. You may choose a number of odometer and speedometer shows not created by Aston Martin, however by Apple. Your cellphone can regulate the automotive’s temperature and activate the heated seats.

If there’s an enchancment to CarPlay Extremely, I couldn’t work out what it was. Whether or not you employ the automotive’s native management interface or one chosen by Apple, you’re tapping the identical display screen to show up the warmth.

Limitations

The old style idea of a Grand Tourer features a imaginative and prescient that you could possibly take the automotive on an extended vacation. With the Vantage’s tiny hatch space (simply 12 cubic toes), you’d higher be packing solely bathing fits.

Key Issues

Value just isn’t probably a critical consideration for anybody purchasing for this automotive, however I can’t assist however discover that even an ultra-rare Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 is available in cheaper than this and appears extraordinary in its personal means.

James Bond wouldn’t be caught useless in a single, although.