The new Vanquish pushes the envelope that much further for Aston Martin, with its achingly beautiful looks and jaw-dropping performance. But if you thought that was impressive, then wait until you experience its topless cousin, the Vanquish Volante. Though we’re just hearing about it now, it’s already set records alight as the world’s fastest, most powerful front-engine convertible! With a chest-pounding twin-turbo 5.2-litre V12 in the front, it would easily crank out a whopping 835 PS and 1,000 Nm of torque. That’s enough for a 0 to 62 mph sprint in just 3.4 seconds, before topping out at an eye-watering 214 mph. Speed is no doubt in abundance!
All that power is sent to the rear wheels through an 8-speed ZF automatic transmission, where Aston Martin’s engineers have integrated it with the rear axle for better weight distribution. In addition, the electronic rear diff locks from 0 to 100% in a mere 135 milliseconds, making for a superbly sharp turn-in and enhancing your mid-corner stability. Speaking of weight, you would be forgiven for thinking that a convertible super-GT ought to weigh a tonne. However, what’s most surprising with the new Vanquish Volante is just how little weight Aston Martin added in return, tipping the scales at just 95 kg more over the coupe – 1,869 kg vs. 1,774 kg kerb weight.
High-Speed Motoring With The Roof Down
This means that you’re able to enjoy an impressive power-to-weight ratio, increasing from 313 hp/tonne to 416 hp/tonne. Of course, when you’re dealing with this much power, you’re going to have to work immensely hard to tame a dragon this potent. Thankfully, Aston Martin would do most of the job for you, with a super high-tech ESP system, and a bespoke-tuned and brand-new set of Bilstein DTX dampers, with no less than 3 different drive modes. The chassis, too, has been stiffened by another 75%, while its as-standard carbon ceramic brakes won’t just stop you on a dime and reduce brake fade. However, it also shed 27 kgs in weight over cast iron rotors.
Alas, with such extreme performance in tow, you’re not going to settle for just regular sports brakes, so a custom set had to be made and fine-tuned just for the new Vanquish Volante. This comes courtesy of Pirelli, with their special set of P Zero PZ4 summer tyres and P Zero Winter 2 tyres, engineered to handle the Vanquish Volante’s extreme top-down performance. Speaking of dropping the top down, I’d be remiss not to at least give special props to the pretty clever K-Fold lightweight fabric roof. It folds down in just 14 seconds, and it takes a mere 16 seconds to bring it back up, and you could retract or flip it up when going at speeds of up to 31 mph.
A Convertible To End All Other Convertibles
Step inside, and you’re cocooned in just as much luxury as the hardtop coupe Vanquish, but I’d make doubly sure you’re not leaving it parked with the roof down! Thankfully, Aston Martin is finally evolving into the 21st century, with a properly modern infotainment system and a trick digital gauge cluster, paired with an excellent 15-speaker Bowers & Wilkins sound system. These speakers are even tuned and placed to ensure that you can enjoy listening to music with the fabric roof down. Granted, I’m not sure if I’d rather listen to that sound system or the optional titanium exhaust system, which is 10.5 kg lighter than the stock unit, and it sounds superb!
If you love the new Vanquish Volante as much as I do, then it’s worth being quick about it! The Vanquish range as a whole isn’t a limited-run car, but with how special it is to Aston Martin, its production is capped, including the coupe and the Volante, to under 1,000 cars per year. This also means that for those lucky few who could afford to put one in their garage, the Vanquish remains a hugely rare and exclusive example, more so once you put it through Aston Martin’s Q personalisation division, enabling you to create truly one-of-a-kind commissions. It would, of course, raise the price even higher than the Vanquish Volante’s expected $500,000 price tag.
