656 HP, Rear-Wheel Drive, and No Apologies: 2025 Aston Martin Vantage
The 2025 Aston Martin Vantage Coupe is a masterclass in unfiltered driving. No hybrid. No AWD. Just a twin-turbo V8 and an attitude problem.
Why does this car matter right now?
Because every other manufacturer is sprinting toward electrification while Aston Martin has quietly built a 656-horsepower, rear-wheel-drive sports car that still breathes through its lungs. No hybrid gimmickry. No silent mode. Just combustion and consequence.
This is the final form of the Vantage as we know it. The sort of machine designed by people who enjoy a proper heel-toe downshift more than TikTok algorithms. Aston Martin isn’t trying to save the planet here. They’re trying to remind it what driving feels like.
It lands in showrooms this summer with a base price around $190,000. That gets you 590 lb-ft of torque, a 0–60 time of 3.4 seconds, and a top speed of 202 mph. If you’re not sweating slightly reading that, you may be dead inside.
How does it compare to rivals?
It doesn’t, frankly. The 2025 Vantage is part of a vanishing breed. Porsche’s 911 is edging closer to hybridisation. The AMG GT, which shares this V8’s DNA, now comes with all-wheel drive and an extra 300 pounds of bloat. Aston Martin went the other way. Less tech, more feel.
The new Vantage gets a 29 percent stiffer chassis, recalibrated adaptive dampers, and a completely reworked suspension geometry. The result is something brutally communicative. It’s not digital. It’s not forgiving. But it is ferociously rewarding.
The car is built on Aston’s updated bonded aluminium platform, now lighter and lower. The ZF 8-speed automatic remains, but it’s been retuned to shift with the sort of snap you expect from a grand tourer that secretly wants to be a track car.
Interior tech? Yes, there’s a 10.25-inch touchscreen. And finally, Apple CarPlay. But unlike everyone else, Aston left the HVAC controls as physical buttons. Praise be. No scrolling through menus to defrost your windscreen.
Who is this for—and who should skip it?
If you’re looking for range, this isn’t for you. If you need wireless charging and massaging seats to feel connected to your car, look elsewhere. But if you believe a car should make you feel slightly nervous on cold tires, step right up.
The 2025 Vantage is for purists. For the person who keeps a second set of tyres in the garage. For the driver who’d rather run out of fuel than soul. It’s not a practical purchase. It’s not even a sensible one. But it is deeply correct.
There are no back seats. No plug-in nonsense. No gentle eco modes. The new active exhaust doesn’t simulate sound, it delivers it—through quad pipes the size of a whiskey tumbler. It is, in short, a very loud middle finger to soft performance.
What’s the long-term significance?
This Vantage will be the last of its kind. Aston Martin has confirmed a hybridised lineup is coming. Future models may have more power. They’ll certainly have more computers. But they won’t have this car’s savage simplicity.
It represents the end of the road for the rear-drive V8 coupe in its rawest form. No trick torque vectoring. No weighty batteries. Just fossil-fuel fury and a chassis tuned to make you earn your lap times.
Production numbers will be low. Probably under 4,000 units globally per year. It will hold value. It may even become one of those cars people talk about in the same breath as the DBS Superleggera or the V12 Vantage S.
More importantly, it gives us a reason to care about internal combustion again. Not as a symbol of denial, but as a final, glorious act before the curtain falls.
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