Aston Martin V12 Vanquish

Overview

The V12 Vanquish was a triumphant return to form for Aston Martin. A classic V12 engine that loved to rev, the car stood atop the lineup from 2000 till 2007. Production started at the refurbished Newport Pagnell factory and deliveries to customers commenced in the Summer of 2001.

Launched at The Geneva Motor Show in March 2001, the V12 Vanquish had been hinted at as early as January 1998, when Aston Martin had revealed the Project Vantage at the New York Motor Show. Built on a technically-advanced carbon fibre and aluminium platform, Project Vantage had been designed by Ian Callum, and was powered by a 5.9-litre engine driving through a six-speed gearbox with paddle shift.That innovative platform was carried forward into production on the V12 Vanquish, which had a strong carbon fibre transmission tunnel bonded to extruded aluminium front and rear bulkheads, with a carbon/steel/aluminium subframe carrying the engine and front suspension. There were deformable crash structures front and rear.​

The V12 Vanquish has its 5.9-litre engine in common with the DB7 Vantage; its shapely exterior panels were hot-formed by a process called ‘Superforming’ pioneered by Aston Martin in the late 1970s to make Lagonda components. A paddle-shift six-speed manual transmission was standard.

Just 1489 examples of the 460bhp Vanquish were constructed before being replaced by the more powerful V12 Vanquish S in 2005. The Vanquish S featured an increase in engine power (up from 460bhp to 520bhp) and revised gear and back axle ratios. Top speed was quoted as being in excess of 200mph, making it one of the fastest Aston Martin road cars built at Newport Pagnell. The exterior panels were still lovingly hand finished in the factory panel shop from ‘Superformed’ aluminium. Discreet changes to ‘S’ included a bigger, revised grille, front splitter and a raised rear ‘spoiler’ built into the boot lid to keep the car stable at high speed.

Inside Vanquish S showed what could be achieved with beautiful hand stitched leather. The dashboard and many of the smaller interior pieces were now trimmed in hide adding to the bespoke feel of the already impressive 2+0 or 2+2 cabin. Very late cars adopted updated switchgear, an Aston Martin audio system and standard fit Satellite Navigation screen.

As the production life of Vanquish drew close to the end a very special limited edition of 50 cars were built. The Vanquish Ultimate featured a unique metallic black paint finish and special trim and fittings. Completion of the last ‘Ultimate’ in July 2007 not only marked the end of a successful career for Vanquish but also over 50 years of Aston Martin car production at Newport Pagnell.