Aston Martin V12 Vantage review

Bluntly, you can’t buy a V12 Vantage. The 333-car run was sold before anyone had even driven it, presumably to people who know that this last-of-line machine was the final iteration before electricity becomes involved. A certain amount of speculation is a certainty, and at circa 270 thousand pounds, it’s not for the faint-hearted or thin of wallet.

With a regular V8 Vantage weighing in at under £120k and the lovely F1 Edition £142k, you have to really want that V12 noise (or be a collector/enthusiast) to warrant the 12-cylinder.

Saying that, there’s immense fun to be had on the Aston Martin configurator; there are some truly epic combinations of colour and trim to be had, from the subtle to the psychotic. And that's before you get the bespokerising ‘Q Division’ involved. Carbon packs and different wheels can all up the list price, taking it truly stratospheric, but one assumes that when you’re heading north of £300k on Vantage, you’re not that worried.

TG went for a rear-wingless solid green version with bronze bits and a smattering of carbon and it looked lightly epic. There was also a committed search for a (slower, likely less useful) manual option that had somehow slipped down the back of the spec sofa, but alas, it was not to be found.

Suffice to say, if this is on a posh lease it’ll cost a reasonable mortgage to finance, and it probably invents its own insurance group. You’ll likely find a couple up for £500k within a week of them getting to their first ‘owners’.