2012 Aston Martin Vanquish: Competition, Vanquished

There’s a new £190,000 V12 Aston Marting flagship, and it’s a resurrection of one of the best names in the business - Vanquish.

As previewed by the Project AM310 at the Villa d’Este Concours earlier this year, the new Vanquish is every bit as stunning as we were emphatically promised. If anything, it highlights Aston’s ongoing commitment to strengthening and reworking its existing design language - which makes the current line-up look somewhat dated alongside younger, fitter rivals like the Mercedes-Benz SLS - into something compatible with our evolving expectations.

The Vanquish’s beauty is in the detail. Design Director Marek Reichman borrowed heavily from the bespoke One-77 in making the Vanquish look every-inch the sophisticated British brute - it retains existing Aston cues in the form of the “moustache” grille and exaggerated haunches, but adds the One-77’s sculpted body panels, and LED “light-blade” clusters among others. Immediately obvious is the near-continuous ring of exposed carbon-fibre detailing that grounds the Vanquish, alluding to the fact that this is the first series-produced Aston with a body made exclusively of the lightweight, expensive material.

Inside too, the fascia that debuted on the DB9 has been replaced with an ergonomically and aesthetically superior dash’. Previous Aston’s interiors did look the part, but at the expense of practicality - in convertible models for example, you couldn’t make out the markings on any of the buttons in bright sunlight. The Vanquish boasts a redesigned user-interface with what looks like touch sensitive buttons, which Aston say will use “haptic feedback” to register button presses. The new steering wheel is a nice touch too, and the familiar Aston dials have been given a minor, but welcome overhaul. Expect the interior to boast a limitless pallet of colour choice and fine quality leather.

Now, the power. You’ve all been waiting for that, haven’t you?

Under the bonnet is the familiar 6-litre V12, which has been “significantly upgraded” with bigger throttle bodies, variable valve timing and a host of other modifications and additions. Whatever technical wizardry they've managed to pull off, 565bhp is the headline figure (the DBS had 510bhp) - this affords the 1700kg Vanquish (56kg lighter than the car it replaces) a 0-60 time of 4.1 seconds, and a top speed of 183mph. Power heads to the rear wheels through the latest incarnation of Aston’s six-speed Touchtronic auto’ box, complete with paddle-shifters behind the wheel.

At first, I’ll admit, I was a little disappointed with the Vanquish’s performance figures; it’s only fractionally faster to 60 than the original Vanquish, and a 911 Carrera S will out-do it top end. But think of it like this - maybe, just maybe, there’ll be a storming “S” model in a couple of years time.

The 2012 Vanquish is 30% stiffer than the DBS and this bodes especially well for handling, which wasn’t exactly one of Aston’s weaknesses beforehand. The car’s centre of gravity is 10mm lower than before, and the suspension and steering have been engineered to deliver an unrivaled sense of agility.

Deliveries start at the end of the year - and for a shade under £190k, you could be one of the lucky few.

What do you think of the new Aston Vanquish? Hit us up on Facebook, Twitter, or right here in the comments.