The power to corrupt

2024 Aston Martin Vanquish

- David Lillywhite

HOW'S THIS for point-proving? Two weeks after the first drives of Ferrari's new 819bhp 12Cilindri, Aston Martin let loose a small group of journalists in Sardinia to drive the 824bhp Vanquish.

Nothing was said... but it was one heck of a statement.

The Vanquish was always Aston Martin's flagship model and always a V12. It was first introduced in 2001 as an Ian Callum design, while the DB7 was still current, and found fame as a Bond car in 2002's Die Another Day. Then came the more powerful 2004 Vanquish S, but the name disappeared three years later, in favour of the flagship DBS. It sprung back in 2012 with the Marek Reichman-designed second-gen Vanquish and 2017 Vanquish S, only to be superseded by the DBS Superleggera in 2018.

Now we have this new, third-generation Vanquish, with an all-new twin-turbo quad-cam V12. 'All-new? Really? The engineers insist it is, from a stronger cylinder block right through to a different firing order.