When Aston Martin builds a car, it is already pretty special. But within Aston Martin, the name Vanquish holds even more reverence.

So when the company decided to develop a new Vanquish model for 2025, the engineering team knew that they needed to make it stand apart from the company’s already incredible DB12 and Vantage models.

“How do we make something that warrants that name plaque?” asked James Owen, senior vehicle engineering manager at Aston Martin. “That responsibility is huge.”

No matter the specifications or driving experience, the new Vanquish will be exclusive. The company says it will build only 1,000 of them per year, but the $429,000 price tag will ensure exclusivity regardless of any stated production limit.

V12 Victory

With last year’s launch of the impressive DB12, it is easy to wonder what is left for Aston to do in this segment. The company’s response is to revive the brand’s iconic V12 engine format. It has twin turbochargers, like the engine in the DB12, but that car has only 8 cylinders.

The Vanquish has a 5.2-liter V12 producing 825 horsepower and 740 lb.- ft. of torque, representing increases of 15 percent and 12 percent, respectively, over the company’s previous V12 model, the DBS. That car’s V12 had a comparatively paltry 715 hp and 663 lb.-ft. The Vanquish’s engine blasts the car to 60 mph in 3.2 seconds and to a top speed of 214 mph.

Related:Testing the 656-Horsepower, 202-mph 2025 Aston Martin Vantage

To achieve such numbers, Aston’s engineering team refined or replaced every single part of the V12 engine, whose architecture debuted with the DB11 in 2016. The Vanquish engine’s front accessory belt drive pulley is the sole carried-over component from the preview edition of the engine, according to Owen.

“We’ve had to revisit and redesign the entire engine,” he said. “The previous V12, obviously we’ve learnt from it, went through a lot of cycles from its initial introduction on DB11, and we’ve really got the most out of it.”

The Vanquish's V12 engine block is reinforced and the heads are better fastened to cope with a 15 percent increase in cylinder head pressure. ASTON MARTIN

The important highlights of the changes include a stronger cylinder block, upgraded connecting rods, new camshaft profiles, and redesigned cylinder heads with new intake and exhaust ports. The relocated spark plugs and new 10 percent higher flow rate fuel injectors also contribute.

Boosted Power

The twin turbochargers benefit from some interesting technology that seeks to eliminate turbo lag, which is the time turbochargers need to build boost after the throttle has been closed and the exhaust gas flow has slowed.

“One of the key bits of technology is Boost Reserve,” Owen explained. “Boost Reserve effectively overboosts the turbos when you’re at partial throttle or off throttle, we hold that charged air behind the throttle blade, and using our intelligent wastegate system, we’re able to deliver that when throttle is applied,” he said. “Effectively, it eradicates turbo lag.”

Related:The Aston Martin DB12 Is a Much-Improved Super Tourer

The Vanquish's underbody diffuser is the primary source of its 264 lbs. of downforce at the car's 214-mph top speed. MAX EAREY/ASTON MARTIN

On the road, my tested Vanquish confirmed this claim. It also provided the shriek at redline that only a V12 configuration can deliver, which will set these engines apart from their lesser rivals until the end of combustion engine production.

Torque Shaping

Aston engineers have also finessed how the V12 delivers its power, providing a customized torque curve for each gear when the driver selects the GT driving mode. “With a thousand newton-meters of torque, sometimes less is more,” Owen observed. “We effectively shape the torque in every single gear. This gives us the ability to tune, to specifically tune each gear to produce the characteristic we want that suits the GT mode, that suits the throttle pedal, that suits the dynamics of the car.”

The Vanquish delivers unfettered power when the driver selects Sport or Sport+ driving mode. Driving modes not only tune engine output, they also adjust the rear-mounted ZF transaxle’s shift characteristics, how the electronic differential splits power between the left and right rear tires, the amount of assistance from the electric power steering, and the damping rates of the Bilstein DTX adaptive shock absorbers.

Related:How Aston Martin Improved the Amazing DBX707 for 2025

The Vanquish's soothing leather upholstery and Bowers & Wilkins audio system contribute to the proper atmosphere for grand touring driving. ANDY MORGAN/ASTON MARTIN

Even with the V12 at the front, the Vanquish achieves a 51/49 front/rear weight distribution. This, combined with the e-diff’s influence on the car’s turning characteristics, the Bilstein shocks, and a stiffer chassis lets the Vanquish handle like a smaller car than it is.

Proper Poise

The steering responsiveness is the result of 75 percent improvement in front-end stiffness compared to the DBS. It is achieved through a heft cross-brace over the engine, bridging the front shock towers along with thicker under-floor panels

Impressively, this responsiveness while slashing through the Sardinian mountain switchbacks of the test drive route did not come at the price of harshness. Nor did the high-performance 21-inch Pirelli tires exact a comfort or noise penalty despite their consistent grip through the curves.

“It’s not just about handling and grip for a Vanquish,” Owen explained. “It has to be comfortable. It has to be quiet. It’s not about having one or the other. It is about having both.”

The massive cross-brace tying the Vanquish's front shock towers contributes to the car's 75 percent increase in lateral rigidity. ASTON MARTIN

This was all true from the driver’s seat. Alas, from the passenger’s seat, that cornering grip made glaring the absence of an “oh shoot” grab handle for stability. When a car handles like the Vanquish, the passenger wants to be able to hold on to something above their head because the door handle isn’t effective in this role.

And while the Vanquish succeeds at providing impressive comfort to go with its crisp handling and invigorating V12 engine note, the team seems to have gotten focused on the checkered flag while calibrating the transmission’s shift program. “A new transmission calibration enhances shift speeds and driver interaction, further emphasizing the engagement and performance feel of the new model,” says the Vanquish’s press release.

Excitable Shifting

This touches on the only real miss in the Vanquish’s execution; the transmission. The ZF gearbox is highly esteemed and can be superb, even in the Vanquish. It is just that when driving in GT mode, it is programmed to deliver that “performance feel.”

As Owen described in regard to torque management in GT mode, that’s when you want the car to relax a bit. Driven on curvy mountain roads, the Vanquish was executing redline upshifts and aggressive two-gear downshifts while braking into corners, when none of this drama was wanted or called for.

You can solve this by using the Vanquish's steering wheel-mounted shift paddles to shift manually. But that seems like the kind of thing you'd want to do while charging at high speed, not when cruising through the curves.

The Vanquish features standard carbon-ceramic brakes that deliver progressive pedal feel and a stunning stopping distance of less than 30 meters from 100 kph. DAN CARNEY

Owen explained that the car learns to deliver what the driver  wants, and that previous test drivers flogging the car had skewed its behavior in this direction. I don’t know whether that’s what happened, I just know that the shifts in Grand Touring mode weren’t very grand.

Fortunately, there are more modes available. Switching to Wet driving mode provided the comfortable shifts I wanted. Unfortunately, it also softened the suspension tuning to a stiffness that is suitable for a low-grip situation. Using it in a high-grip situation induced a lot of body roll.

There’s a custom setting available too, so it would just be a matter of going into settings and choosing the GT or Sport suspension setting with the Wet powertrain setting to give me the cushy experience I wanted during my brisk drive.

That’s how polished and fantastic the Vanquish is: the complaint is that you might have to dial up some custom preferences on the driving mode that they provide to let you do exactly that.