The $450,000, 800HP Aston Martin Vanquish Is the World's Most Driver-Focused GT - TheSmokingTire

Okay guys, today we're in the Aston Martin Vanquish. Good morning, welcome to the hill. We're going to start this video by seeing if CarPlay will connect to my phone. We've got CarPlay Ultra in the $450,000 plus Aston Martin Vanquish. And I have, you know, I loved my Apple iPhone 16 for many, or 13 Mini for many years. I've gotten a 16 Pro and we're going to see if it connects to CarPlay Ultra right now. Does it? I've turned the car on and I'm sitting here. We'll go into, you know, just start in sport mode and it says searching for phones, searching for phones. Now CarPlay Ultra worked on the drive up here. I got in my house and it says connecting to Matt's phone and CarPlay Ultra has worked. Okay, so I've been sitting here for about 45 seconds and that's how long it took for CarPlay Ultra to start. But now it has started and that's pretty cool because I can do my Sirius and FM radio. I can do my climate control and most importantly, I can deactivate my ADAS through CarPlay, which you have to do every single time you drive. Every single time you drive, folks. So once you fully deactivate ADAS and the car is now usable and not insanely frustrating, we can start to drive. And we're going to start to drive just by doing a launch. We're going to turn traction control into its sportiest mode and then we're going to turn our knob to sportiest TC. Launch, race, start, active. Folks, we wouldn't be able to review the Aston Martin Vanquish on video without support from today's sponsor, Delete.Me. Data brokers are out there making a profit off your data. It's your data. They're just middlemanning it. They're not even using it at the other end. These people are making money off taking your data from A to B, which can lead to identity theft, phishing, hacking attempts, scams, you know, the texts, the calls, it stinks. But now you can protect your privacy with Delete.Me. What Delete.Me does is it's a service you sign up for, right? Not a one-time thing, an ongoing thing. You sign up, you give them all the information that you want taken off the internet. But it sounds counterintuitive, but they need to know what to look for. They then go hunting. They go through all the big and small data broker websites, automatically deleting a bunch of stuff, sending other stuff to you where you have to do that final click to delete it, and even more where you have to put in some other type of input to get it removed, right? Official requests and such. And then they send you a report, and they're like, wow, your address and phone number were in 1,500 data broker websites. That's crazy. The next month they do it again, and they send you another report. Maybe it's like 500, and then it goes down and down and down. And so I've been using it for a few months, and the reports are now small. And I've noticed fewer texts, fewer calls, and fewer problems with my life online in general. Now you can do it too. It's very, very easy. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete.Me, and we've got a special discount, 20% off, big number, 20% off your Delete.Me plan by just texting the word REVIEW to 64,000. That's it. The only way to get 20% off is to text the word REVIEW to 64,000. Messaging and data rates may apply. Now, let's listen to a twin turbo V12 Aston Martin. Burnout. Burnout. So it had no traction in first, some traction in second, and then less traction in third. Now, the Aston Martin Vanquish, my friends. This is pretty nutty, okay? We have the only GT car in their lineup right now with the twin turbo V12. It now makes 838 horsepower and over 730 pounds of torque. And even though this car weighs 4,100 and change, that's a lot, okay? Peak torque is 2,500 RPM, which is great. That's low, and then peak power is 6,500, so you've got really 4,000 RPM to play with. The steering is very, very sharp, which comes from a few things. One, the rack is quick. Two, it seems like there is some camber, and we've got 275 P0 fronts, along with a double wishbone front suspension. So the front is really compliant, actually, and really precise and really sharp. Almost too precise because those 275 P0s do tramline on the freeway, and it's a little bit of work to make this thing stay straight, more so than I'd want from a GT car. But the turn-in, super sharp, and the front takes bumps really well. The back is a little more bouncy over the bumps, so it's almost like a Caterham, where you can plant the front end and micro-adjust the front end really easily, but then you spend the rest of your time managing the back end. Of course, you have an electronic limited-slip diff, you have the eight-speed paddle-shift gearbox, which is as good as it's going to be. It's right here. Those flat-foot upshifts are incredibly smooth. Cruising around town, incredibly smooth. The downshifts, as good as they're going to be. Tied with the black wing, tied with the V12, tied with the best that torque converter autos can be, but if you're comparing it to a Ferrari dual-clutch or a Porsche dual-clutch, it ain't a dual-clutch. But it's smooth and it's easy, and so there's that. Now, the fact that the front end is so sharp and precise is funny because it also simultaneously feels very far away. I can tell I have very precise control over something way over there, which is sort of a fun thing. This car is huge. It's essentially the same length as my Porsche Taycan, and it only fits two people, and it has a very small trunk. So it's sort of like a funny, it's really that personal luxury coupe taking up space mantra. Now, it's not all the way to America take up space. You can fit it in one regular parking spot, but for a two-seater, this thing is big. Now, when I go to make a U-turn, it's not great at that. It takes a while, a large turning radius. We don't have rear steer in this car, and the maximum angle is not great. But man, when you put your foot down, you know, part of you goes, well, all right, the DB12 is like 250. You're telling me that this car is another 200 grand. On top of that, four more cylinders, like how does that work? And it works when you go flat from four to 6,000. That's really where it works. I would say legit, if you wanted to go on a road trip with your spouse, or if you wanted to daily at exotic, the DB12 is legit a better car for that. It's more relaxed on the road. The steering doesn't have the dartiness. It's not as bouncy. It's a little smoother, easy to use every day. The extra bit of money that you're spending on a Vanquish versus a DB12 happens on the sort of edges of performance. When you really start to go quick, if you're talking about a car that, despite its front engine, is a weekend specialty car and not a sort of everyday exotic, this is a narrower focus, sharper, much, much faster. This thing is doing zero to 60 in 3.0, rear wheel drive, you know, no special tricks, just huge power. The launch is uneventful because it's not a dual clutch. It doesn't dump. It just loads a torque converter old school and then lets it go. That's not like as fun to me, but it's still ridiculously quick. This thing sounds so good. It actually sounds totally different inside the car than it does outside the car. Inside the car, it has more of like a tonal soprano horn. Outside the car, a little more bass. Big ceramics, got to get them hot. The ceramics on this car, actually, in the city when they don't get any heat into them, you have to press the pedal really hard, kind of like old school ceramics. Up here, a few quick stops, and these get a little bit of heat in them, and man, they start working real good. And I really like what happens when you load the brakes and then turn in. I mean, the response of this car on the front, once that brake pedal is loaded, is absolutely extraordinary. That's really, really nice. And so unlike the Bentleys, we don't have all-wheel drive. Unlike the Ferraris, we don't have rear steer. Also, unlike the Bentley, no hybrid system, none of those extra sneaky power adders. Aston has really committed to a... Oh my god, this car is so fast. They've really committed to a more natural feeling driving experience, and I think this car really does provide that. It's pretty special. The engine is so nuts. It's so fast. I mean, yeah, where does that extra 200 grand feel like it went somewhere? Third or fourth gear between 4,000 and 7,000 rpm. That's where it happens. Oh, Integra Type S, driver of taste. I like that. Oh, as we finish this video, let me just add something here as I make this U-turn. This car doesn't have nose lift, and it scrapes everywhere. Everywhere. Normally, if I scrape an exotic car, I am extremely apologetic about it. I would write a letter and say, I'm so sorry I've damaged your car, and here are the circumstances, etc. This car scrapes so much and so often, there's no apology letter I can write. It's not me. I didn't make a mistake. Aston has built such a beautiful car that is lovely to use. It's focused, but not unusably so. It's extremely fast, but in no way unpleasant. You have to give up some space. It's not that practical for such a big car, but you get the pace, and you get an extremely dramatic-looking silhouette. But it's not my fault that this car scrapes everywhere. It's theirs. I'm just going to say it. This is a scrapey car, but in almost every other way, it is aces. Absolutely gorgeous. Impeccably built. Although CarPlay Ultra is slow and clunky to get going once it works, it does work well, and we still have buttons and scroll knobs for our major drive controls, as well as the volume and temperature for the HVAC. Thank you to Aston for letting me have a go. This has been a lovely week with The Vanquish. Thank you to you guys for watching, and I'll see you later. And don't forget, always fight your tickets. Go to offtherecord.com for 10% off all legal services from Off the Record.