Design director Marek Reichman is quick to head me off at
the pass. The main thrust of the Mercedes AMG tie-in is, he avers, of an
electrical-plusancillaries nature, intended to assuage such issues as
persuading diversely sourced ECUs and gearboxes to talk to each other properly.
And, whilst he is a little cagier about future plans for the V8 engine (which
will, I suspect, be AMG-sourced and Aston-fettled), he insists the V12 will
remain as much an Aston Martin engine as it ever was, and that the noise will
remain one of the most sacrosanct attributes of the cars it powers.
Hope so, because the dosh could be well spent elsewhere.
Unlike the powertrain, the interior’s crying out for a major overhaul. A
gratuitously jaunty angle to the air vents aside, there’s nothing wrong with
the basic architecture, which has lost none of its visual strength. The thing
is, that’s precisely what’s lacking in the attendant switchgear and
instrumentation...
Aston Martin
Vanquish Badge
No matter, because to drive the Vanquish is to forgive it
almost everything. Untainted by turbocharging and now abetted by gearshifts as
deft as a world-class cutpurse, the powertrain is a masterpiece of smooth,
relentless urgency. Peak torque arrives long before maximum power, and the only
real reason to properly bend the rev counter needle is for the noise. So this
happens. A lot.
A choice of ‘Normal’ or ‘Sport’ powertrain modes opens an
attitude crevasse; the engine surprisingly slow on the uptake in the former,
but wide awake in the latter. Pulling and holding down one irritatingly
undersized steering wheel paddle elicits automatic block down changes to the
lowest available ratio. But where’s the fun in that when you miss out on the
successive, suspicious-guard-dog bark attendant to the selection of each fresh
cog?
2014 Aston Martin
Vanquish Head Rest
The most blatant manifestation of Aston’s response to
requests for a more extreme Vanquish experience is, however, in that stiffened
suspension. A deal of pliancy has been sacrificed even in ‘Normal’ mode, making
the car feel notably less gran turismoin its capacity to tackle poorer
surfaces. ‘Sport’ mode merely adds rocks to what is already more gristle than
blancmange, whist the ‘Track’ setting is stiff enough to shake the ticks off a
sheepdog.
Carbon-ceramic
discs have more retardation than a loony bin
Let’s hope we still have a few years before Aston succumbs
to electric steering, because the current offering is rather wonderful in the
manner of a system which is so sorted it requires absolutely no contemplation.
It’s beautifully weighted, properly accurate and imbued with lashings of the
feel and feedback required when asking a big car to dance to your tune. The
Vanquish boasts stacks of mechanical grip, and may be leaned on to a quite
exceptional extent for such a large machine; the more you ask of it the more
firmly it tucks its rump into the road surface, settling in with admirable
poise. Allied to that delicious helm, this equates to an unexpected degree of
agility, the pleasure of placing such a large hooter with such accuracy on
smaller, tighter roads marred only by suspension verging on over-tough for the
British b-road. Stick to wide, sweeping A-roads, however, and the Aston is
entirely at home, covering ground with magisterial poise, and noise, and
responding to your growing confidence in the depths of its abilities with ever
increasing pace.
