Iconic British sports car manufacturer Aston Martin’s move into Formula 1 racing has freed the brand from the nostalgic space that had cast the company as an accessory to a fictional British action hero.
Now aligned with real-life Formula 1 drivers Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll and the high-tech cars they pilot 24 Sundays a year, Aston is seen as a true peer of its famous red rival from Maranello.
This brings the benefit of increased attention and credibility to Aston’s products, but also brings higher expectations. “Quirky” won’t cut it anymore, and neither will the anachronistic features Aston has recently banished from its products, like its push-button shift selector or its outdated infotainment system.
So when Aston took its new Vanquish, a $429,000, 824bhp, 214mph V12-powered flagship out for a test drive in Sardinia, expectations were as high as the price and performance specs. Just as there are no excuses for the Aston Martin team’s performance against the world’s best rivals on Formula 1 race tracks, there can be no excuses in the showroom race against the likes of McLaren and Ferrari.
As with their race car, Aston brought an impressive list of blue-chip technical partners to the Vanquish project, including Bilstein, Pirelli, Michelin, Bosch, Brembo, Valvoline and ZF.
Behind the wheel
Popular science has recently driven the Aston DB12 and Vantage, and while the Vanquish bears a resemblance to its smaller siblings, a side-by-side comparison shows that its sinuous lines are even more exciting. Viewed from the rear three-quarter angle, the Vanquish resembles an arrow, drawn from its quiver and aimed at the target.
The Vanquish cuts a rugged profile that’s underscored by a wheelbase that’s 3.1 inches longer than that of the DBS, which was Aston’s latest V12 in the Vanquish’s grand touring class. That length was all added forward of the windshield, giving the Vanquish the bold proportions of a proper dream car. As an added practical benefit, legroom has been increased, helping the Vanquish’s comfort.
As attractive as the wrap is, the hardware underneath is even more critical. In the case of the Vanquish, that starts with a chassis that’s 75 percent stiffer in lateral stiffness at the front axle, when compared to the DBS. This was achieved through the installation of a stronger carbon fiber cross-brace between the front shock towers and a thicker tray enclosed under the engine.
This and the 51/49 percent front/rear weight distribution allows this big car to respond expertly to steering input, accurately following the intended course and providing good road feel and feedback. This strong foundation allows the Bilstein DTX dampers to do their job, with quick response times that allow the different drive mode settings to deliver significantly different ride and handling characteristics.
The electronic differential adjusts the torque balance between the left and right rear wheels, going from fully open to fully locked (or vice versa) in 135 milliseconds. It works with the Vanquish’s 2.0 corner braking system to help cornering, as the e-diff can send more power to the steering wheel on the outside of the corner while the brake system can apply more braking force to the steering wheel on the inside to help the car rotates to the top.
The effect of these systems is subtle, as the driver should feel heroic, not overlooked. “It doesn’t look like the system has taken over, which is very important to us,” said Aston Martin’s senior manager of vehicle engineering, James Owen. Indeed, the mix of braking and steering input to bend the Vanquish around the twisting curves of the Sardinian mountains reveals the Vanquish to be a comfortable and quick partner.
Those brakes are the real thing. In an emergency stop, the Vanquish’s Brembo carbon ceramic brakes halt progress from 100 km/h (62 mph) in less than 30 meters (98.4 feet), a common European benchmark for truly superlative braking. In normal driving, the brakes provide progressive response, so there is none of the excessive grab that is typical of Ferrari brakes, even on touring models like the Purosangue.
The comfort part of the equation is critical for the Vanquish. This is no track-ready Vantage. It’s a grand tourer, meant to shorten long road trips with its combination of speed and comfort. This is achieved through the previously mentioned advanced suspension, which allows drivers to choose a suitable setup for the driving they plan to do.
“Aston Martins, we always say, should breathe with the road,” said Owen. “They have to have that body control and not have harsh impacts and give the driver the feeling and the confidence that they really know what they’re doing every corner.”
In this endeavor it is supported by plush leather upholstery, silence on the road thanks to Pirelli tires and an impressive Bowers & Wilkins audio system with 15 speakers. The Pirelli Noise Canceling System is a technology that can halve the noise inside the car thanks to a sound-absorbing device mounted on the inside of the tire.
The Vanquish’s hallmark is its twin-turbocharged V12 engine, a new design with its roots in the previous version. The only carryover part is the front accessory belt pulley, according to Owen.
The new engine has a reinforced cylinder block and revised head bolt fasteners to handle 15 percent higher cylinder head pressures. The connecting rods are also reinforced to withstand higher loads, while the camshafts have been revised to move more air and fuel through the engine’s revised intake and exhaust ports.
The fuel injection system has 10 percent higher flow rate injectors and reduced-mass turbochargers provide quicker throttle response. To minimize turbo lag, the time it takes for the turbos to spin up to speed and deliver boost, Aston has developed a system it calls Boost Reserve.
“Boost Reserve effectively boosts the turbo when you’re at part-throttle or throttle, we keep that charged air behind the throttle blade,” explained Owen, “and using our intelligent wastegate system, we’re able to provide it when the throttle is applied. It effectively eliminates turbo lag.”
The Boost Reserve lives up to this promise, as there was no noticeable lag in power delivery when accelerating out of slow corners. Indeed, the V12 makes so much power that Aston engineers have devised another technology to help manage the engine’s torque when driving in GT mode.
GT mode is supposed to be a more relaxed driving philosophy than Sport or hair-on-fire Sport, so the engine management computer measures the V12’s torque output more judiciously in that setting. There is a separate torque distribution curve for each of the eight gears in the ZF automatic transmission, with power tailored to suit the requirements of each.
“With a thousand newton meters of torque, sometimes less IS more,” Owen noted. “We effectively build torque in every single gear. This gives us the ability to tune, specifically tune each gear to produce the characteristic that we want that suits the GT mode, that suits the throttle pedal, that suits the dynamics of the car.”
The Vanquish is not without its flaws
As lovely as the Vanquish is as it carves through mountain roads with comfort and ease, it’s not perfect. Passengers will immediately notice the lack of a grab handle up top to stabilize as the car goes through corners. A door-mounted handle is ineffective for this purpose because it is too low.
But the real surprise, for a grand touring car whose engineers put an emphasis on providing easy and comfortable speed, is the transmission calibration. Even in GT mode, the transmission is very busy. Understandably, the transmission downshifts aggressively during acceleration and when braking for upcoming turns while driving in Sport and Sport+ modes.
But when driving in GT mode, when the object is to never be seen breaking a sweat, Aston has programmed the stellar ZF 8-speed automatic transmission to use more of those gears than it should, often making double-shifts when a single gear is all that is required. It seems like the calibration engineers focused a little too much on their track testing during the development of the car, considering that this is not a model that is intended for such use.
The problem can be addressed by using Custom Mode settings, which allow you to mix and match settings from different modes and apply them to the drivetrain, suspension and driving characteristics of the car. This allows you to select the soft settings for wet driving mode for the transmission, while retaining the GT or even Sport settings for the suspension.
Perhaps this is Aston’s way of letting you feel more like one of the drivers of the race team as you cycle through the available adjustments to dial the car to deliver exactly the performance you prefer. Then you’ll be too busy thinking about fictional spy movie franchises.
