Page 74 - SHARP Summer 2024

BRITISH INVASION
WITH THE NEW 2025 VANTAGE, CAN ASTON MARTIN REALLY BECOME THE ‘BRITISH FERRARI’?
By Matt Bubbers
CANADIAN BILLIONAIRE LAWRENCE STROLL MADE HIS
fortune in fashion. In the 1990s, he helped turn Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger into household names and masterminded the rise of Michael Kors in the 2000s.
Clearly, then, Stroll has an eye for untapped potential. But he’s not the first to envision bigger things for British automaker Aston Martin. The story of Aston is one of constant comebacks, knock- downs, and reinvention. The brand is a perpetual underdog, but one that has occasionally produced some of the most achingly desirable cars on the planet. Despite that (and the company’s connection to a certain fictional spy), the business has rarely turned a real profit in its 111-year history and has gone bankrupt seven times. Stroll is merely the latest businessman to take on the difficult task of saving Aston Martin; he’s talked about turning the brand into a ‘British Ferrari.’ Judged solely by market cap, Aston has got a long, long way to go.
The new 2025 Aston Martin Vantage, however, is a good start. Thundering along southern Spain’s Circuito Monteblanco at speeds of up to 260 km/h, it’s obvious that this latest Vantage is all Aston. It drives with the brand’s usual mix of muscular brutality and Oxbridge refinement, but it’s an altogether more serious machine than its
predecessor. The car’s revised twin-turbo V8 engine churns out 656 horsepower — roughly 150 more than in the old model — which transforms this new one into a true top-flight sports car. The chassis is new too, wider and stiffer than before. The wheel arches bulge to contain these extreme new proportions, and carbon brakes slow everything down.
At Monteblanco, the Vantage dances around corners and only becomes more fun when the electronic safety net is switched off. It isn’t quite razor sharp, but it is — incredibly for a small, rear-drive sports car with so much power — pretty easy to drive both at and over the limit. It doesn’t flatter mistakes, but it doesn’t punish them too harshly, either. It’ll happily entertain drivers of all skill levels.
To achieve this, Aston’s engineers had to reinvent roughly 80 per cent of the car’s hardware. It wasn’t cheap, but Stroll seems intent on spending the money necessary in the short term to make Aston’s products competitive in the hope that, in the long term, its market cap might someday rival Ferrari’s. To that end, in addition to upping the performance dramatically, every revised Aston is getting a brand-new infotainment system and beautiful, leather-clad interior. After spending a day with the car on the track and roads of Spain, the new Vantage clears the bar. It’s easily the most well-rounded Aston Martin we’ve ever driven.
Of course, we’ve been burned before when getting our hopes up for one of Aston Martin’s comebacks. Under Stroll, at least, the company is doing the hard things, spending cash where it counts, and heading in the right direction. Who knows, maybe he could actually pull this off.
SPECS
ENGINE: 4.0-LITRE TWIN-TURBO V8 POWER: 656 HP
PRICE: $229,200
DRIVES
74 SUMMER 2024
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