Aston Martin Vanquish Volante review

Aston reckons that this generation of Vanquish will actually be slightly more popular as a Volante than it will as a coupe: just over 50 per cent of its orders so far are for the drop-top version.

That’s good news for company finances, because while the coupe starts at around £330,000, the Volante will cost you a minimum of £345,000. Yikes.

Oh, and as we mentioned on the opening page of this review, over 70 per cent of all Vanquishes sold so far have some form of Q personalisation. That’s beyond what’s already available on the extensive configurator, so customers are dropping serious sums on the big Aston.

Only 1,000 Vanquishes will be built each year, and based on the endless options for paint, trim, wheels, badging etc we can’t imagine any two will be the same. And if it is, why not just change the colour of your ‘shield’ on the rear of the car to stand out.

Dare I ask about fuel economy?

Ah yes, the big Aston can get rather thirsty. Over a 100-mile jaunt on a mix of UK roads we saw an average of 14.3mpg, but get excited on a country road and you’ll regularly see that dip into the single figures. You didn’t expect it to be a Prius rival, did you?

In fact, there’s one main rival to the Vanquish Volante, and that’s the £366,500 Ferrari 12Cilindri Spider. That car is a little more relaxed than its 812 predecessor (that’s relative of course, because it still uses a 6.5-litre naturally aspirated V12), whereas if you wind the Aston up it’s now more bonkers than ever before.