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Aston Martin's Vanquish rides again

Aston Martin announced details of its Vanquish, the successor to the current DBS and a revival of the model name.

Wayne Cunningham Managing Editor / Roadshow
Wayne Cunningham reviews cars and writes about automotive technology for CNET's Roadshow. Prior to the automotive beat, he covered spyware, Web building technologies, and computer hardware. He began covering technology and the Web in 1994 as an editor of The Net magazine.
Wayne Cunningham
2 min read

Hot on the heels of Bentley's announcement of its new GT Speed comes news from Aston Martin about the revival of the coolest model name in the automotive industry. A new Vanquish model will show up early next year exhibiting extremes of luxury and performance.

According to Aston Martin's release, the new Vanquish looks to be a significant technological improvement. Not often seen with a grand tourer, the body is entirely composed of carbon fiber. That construction should make the car lighter than the DBS, the model it replaces, although Aston Martin did not release a curb weight figure. The company does say the new Vanquish is 25 percent more rigid than the outgoing DBS.

Aston Martin 310 Vanquish (pictures)

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Also impressive is the use of an adaptive suspension system, which the driver can set to Normal, Sport, or Track. The car will also sport launch control, so wealthy boy racers can maximize zero to 60 mph times.

Under the hood is a 6-liter V-12 producing 565 horsepower and 457 pound-feet of torque, which makes it almost the most powerful Aston Martin, just short of the limited edition One-77, on which much of the Vanquish is based. The engine puts power to the rear wheels through a six-speed automatic transaxle, its rear-mounting allowing 85 percent of the car's weight to sit between the front and rear axles.

From CNET's perspective, one of the more exciting improvements is the car's cabin tech. Where we complained about the Aston Martin Vantage's poor electronics interface, photos of the Vanquish's interior show what seems to be a more unified display. It looks like navigation, phone, and stereo systems all use a flip-up LCD. Aston Martin points out that it updated the cabin tech, and uses Garmin software for navigation.

Continuing its relationship with Bang & Olufsen, Aston Martin fits the Vanquish with a 1,000 watt 15-speaker audio system. In the DBS, this system produced sublime sound quality, and should perform equally well in the Vanquish.

The coincidence of the Aston Martin and Bentley announcements can be attributed to the Goodwood Festival of Speed, a major British automotive event that runs from June 28 to July 1.

The Vanquish goes on sale early next year at a price of $280,000.