Page 94 - Sharp Winter 2025

AUTO
Most Beautiful Car of the Year
With the 2025 Vanquish, Aston Martin pulls no punches to create a most striking design
By Matt Bubbers
JUST LOOK AT IT. YOU WANT ONE, DON’T YOU? MAYBE
in silver metallic, or midnight purple, or British racing green. Perhaps a saddle-tan leather interior with the panoramic roof, or maybe you’re doing an entirely bespoke colour/trim combo whipped up with Aston’s Q division. The fact is the 2025 Aston Martin Vanquish is hot. It’s this year’s most beautiful car.
The English designer Marek Reichman, who has been shaping Aston Martin’s cars since he joined the firm in 2005, seems to be incapable of making anything other than beautiful machines, but
even by his standards the all-new Vanquish is a stone-cold stunner. “It’s looking for its prey. This is actually looking for one of those red cars,” Reichman said, taking a cheeky shot at Ferrari while giving
us a tour of his latest creation.
Seen in person, it’s hard to believe the $514,800 Vanquish is
made of hard metal. The deeply sculpted surfaces across the doors and over the rear haunches look almost liquid. When the sun hits them, they shimmer like mercury.
Classical sports car proportions give the Vanquish its timeless presence. Compared to the V8-engined Aston DB12, the V12-engined Vanquish is much longer, which explains its leaner, more exotic appearance. If you look at the car’s inside profile you’ll notice the ratio of glass to metal is roughly 1/3 to 2/3, the golden ratio. Look closely and you’ll see that ratio used throughout the design.
Making such a beauty was a major investment. Those longer, leaner proportions meant Aston’s engineers had to create a new platform for this car, of which they will only make a maximum of 1,000 examples every year. The engineers also had to completely revise and remake the 5.2-litre twin-turbo V12 to produce 824 horsepower and 738 lb-ft of torque. It’s an absolute brute of an engine, sounding simultaneously rich and angry through its titanium exhaust. We drove it across Sardinia and can confirm the new Vanquish drives just as beautifully as it looks.
94 WINTER 2025
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