Driving the 2025 Aston Martin Vantage Coupe

November 11, 2025

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There are 5 drive modes within the 2025 Aston Martin Vantage coupe: Sport, Sport Plus, Observe, 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 underneath 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 visitors in a single really feel a bit like strolling an indignant guard canine by way of a kids’s party: You’re simply restraining this factor.

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

However I discovered the Aston’s candy spot, not at a monitor day, however on a protracted, winding street 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 easy out the soul and gradual the heartbeat like an exquisite drive in a automotive with full of life 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 greatest when there’s nobody round.

Which Trim Stage

Aston Martin builds the Vantage Coupe in common and S kind, 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 under for exact particulars.

New 2025 Aston Martin Vantage Costs

		Retail Worth	Truthful Buy Worth (92620)
	Base Fashion	$194,500	TBD

Favourite Characteristic

The perfect options of the 2025 Aston Martin Vantage all need to do with sound.

The electrical car (EV) age has scrambled our understanding of velocity. The quickest vehicles I’ve pushed in the previous couple of years have virtually 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 street, although, and also you received’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 wished the sonorous theater of an actual, superb, old school engine.

Years of testing vehicles 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 likely one of the greatest 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 properly.

What It’s Wish 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 opulent, stunning 2-seater as highly effective as a sports activities automotive however barely extra tuned for consolation.

A rustic drive within the Vantage received’t settle the query. An enormous, twin-turbo V8 in entrance of you placing down all its energy to outsized wheels behind you feels deeply, virtually subliminally highly effective. That deep, rumbling exhaust notice underlines it in a approach you possibly can really feel in your bones. It’s arduous to not really feel it is a pure efficiency automotive.

Dealing with is full of life 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 burden of the steering wheel feels critical in your arms, however the automotive’s response is lithe and whiplike-quick.

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

I didn’t get monitor time, however didn’t need it. The Vantage cries for an undulating nation street 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 widespread to supercars, however one that’s fading in the present day. It seats the driving force and passenger in deep wells, separated by a tall middle console stuffed with 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 isn’t overly giant, exhibiting that the drive is your leisure.

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

Referred to as CarPlay Extremelyit enables you to management each of the automotive’s show screens — the driving force’s show and the central unit — as projections of your telephone. You’ll be able to choose a number of odometer and speedometer shows not created by Aston Martin, however by Apple. Your telephone can modify 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 utilize the automotive’s native management interface or one chosen by Apple, you’re tapping the identical display to show up the warmth.

Limitations

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

Key Concerns

Worth isn’t possible a critical consideration for anybody searching 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 approach.

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