The 2025 Aston Martin Vantage: Achingly beautiful and thrilling to drive
I'm not sure I can remember another car that took as long to get comfortable with as the 2025 Aston Martin Vantage. It's an achingly beautiful machine, from the outside at least. And by the week's end, I had my first glimpses into how it can deliver driver engagement with the best of them. By then I'd also gotten over my disappointment with the interior and, sadly yet again, had the "British cars with crap electronics" stereotype confirmed once more.
Painted the same striking shade of Podium Green as one of Formula 1's safety cars, the Vantage is one of the most eye-catching cars we've tested in a while. In person, that giant front grille dominates things, but all around the car you see the influence of the aerodynamicists and engineers who want to bend the airflow to their needs; cutting drag here, adding downforce there, feeding a cooling duct or venting waste heat. The way the wheel arches stretch out from the doors reminds me of the One-77 supercar from a few years ago, but it's all a thoroughly modern shape here.
That sculpted and vented hood contains the Vantage's 4.0 L twin-turbo V8. With 656 hp (490 kW) and 590 lb-ft (800 Nm), it's the most powerful Vantage to date, eclipsing the time the company bolted some Eaton superchargers to a 2-ton Chesterfield sofa on wheels. ZF's excellent 8HP automatic transmission sends that power and torque to the rear wheels, which arrived wearing Vantage-specific versions of Michelin's latest Pilot Sport 5 tires.