Sport Is The Favoured Setting Of AM Vanquish Volante (Part 2)

The interior is largely carry-over Vanquish fare, meaning it uses the touch-sensitive, haptic-feedback center console that is a big improvement over the DBS’s clunky dash, and has more permutations of color and trim than a fashion warehouse. But as many options of paint and cow peel as the Q team can muster, they’d be useless if the car’s basic shape was out of whack.

Tidy central dash (shared with the Vanquish Coupe): touch-sensitive, haptic-feedback buttons

And nothing could be further from the truth. The design and engineering team have created what is without doubt one of the world’s sexiest ever rear spoiler designs. The carbon-fibre aero-duct appears to have just oozed out of the molten bodyshape and gone solid. There are no joint lines, creases or screw holes – just one swoopingly perfect line that nails it.

It’s details like this, along with the whole car’s effortless character, that put you in a very forgiving state of mind when you climb behind the wheel. You already know you’re driving the most fluently good-looking car on the road for miles around, and you know that everyone else knows that, too. All the car really has to do is move at an OK pace and not disgrace itself and it would already be an easy sell. But then you turn it on, the engine barks into life and, well, the deal is complete.

And the chassis, which has three-mode active damping tuned to the Volante’s weight and flex – sport is the favored setting

That’s despite what might initially appear to be some mechanical deficiencies compared with the competition. You might expect an eight-speed dual-clutch gearbox, but find only a six-speed automatic. There’s no six-speed manual option any more. That’s OK.

Since the main reason for adding ratios is to improve economy, and Aston doesn’t have to worry about such things, there wasn’t any need to make the change. So they didn’t, and, with 457lb ft of torque available, it absolutely doesn’t need it. Would have probably made it worse, not better.

It’s the same story with the engine, which has been around since the turn of the century, but now has all the latest technologies to make it sweeter, smoother and more powerful. And the chassis, which has three-mode active damping tuned to the Volante’s weight and flex – sport is the favored setting.

New would not be the right way to describe the Aston Martin Vanquish Volante. ‘New’ is not a woody, Aston Martin type of word

On the road, the Vanquish Volante, for all the weight-saving and balancing talk – and it is around 35kg lighter than the DBs Volante – still tips the scales at 1,844kg. So even though the steering is sharp and accurate, the rest of the car feels far more relaxed about going quickly. It can still vanquish a mountain road when the mood takes you, but it feels most at home when it’s moving, as its other name suggests, with a light rapidity.

If new is the wrong word to describe this car, I don’t think it would cause too many problems if we just called it fabulous instead. Because that’s what it is, too.

Verdict

Soft-topped Vanquish plays more to Aston strengths of effortless design/performance than the Vanquish Coupe.