Aston Martin Vanquish Volante review

As you might expect with 824bhp from a twin-turbo V12, the driving experience is mostly dominated by that engine.

We described full throttle in the Vanquish coupe as “like falling horizontally towards the view”, and although the Volante sacrifices a tenth of a second in the 0-62mph stakes, once you’ve got the roof down and can feel the wind tearing your hair out, it feels like it’s even faster than its tin-topped sibling.

Like the coupe, the convertible gets Aston’s clever new ‘Boost Reserve’ function to help the turbos react as quickly as possible, and while you can catch it out by burying the throttle in too high a gear, if you drop a couple of quick cogs using the wheel-mounted paddles you’ll feel exactly when the turbos are fed with that stored pressure. There’s serious, almost-instant shove.

Excellent grip from the special Pirelli tyres too, although it’s still a wild ride and is accompanied by a brutal 12-cylinder soundtrack. The drop-top Volante is all the better for hearing said sound, too.

What about when you get to a corner?

Okay, perhaps there’s not quite as much feedback through the steering wheel as we might like, but this is a giant GT that still gets a sharp front end and changes direction very neatly. The extra weight mostly sits towards the rear of the car, so the weight distribution is closer to 50:50 than you’ll find in the coupe. The steering has a decent weight to it and doesn’t feel overly assisted either, while the e-diff shuffles power to keep the rear in check through bends.

You get a hefty brake pedal too and awesome stopping power from the standard carbon ceramic brakes, plus there’s Aston’s multi-stage traction control to up the ante and remove assistance in carefully judged stages.

Can it still do the job of a GT?

While Sport and Sport+ modes deliver noise and thunder that make the Vanquish Volante feel like a maniacal supercar, in the standard GT mode the torque curve is carefully shaped in the first four gears for slightly more relaxing acceleration that builds to a crescendo higher in the rev range.

The adaptive Bilstein dampers are softened to allow for a little bit of body roll too and – when closed – the fabric roof deploys its ‘multi-layered insulation’ to keep road and wind noise from filling the cabin. It’s a remarkably quiet cruiser, with noise cancelling tech in its tyres and that monstrous engine ticking over at 1,500rpm at motorway speeds.

Probably worth noting here that you also get a ‘Wet’ mode, and while we didn’t drive the Vanquish Volante in any rain, we’d imagine we would be quite thankful that it limits torque to just under 300lb ft.

What’s the ride like?

The Volante’s rear spring rate is up seven per cent over the coupe and the front anti roll bar is seven per cent stiffer too, but it’s the same basic chassis as the hard-top and Aston says it developed them side-by-side to ensure that no compromises were made when chopping off the roof.

The ride is on the firmer side particularly if you step out of GT mode, but it still copes admirably with bigger bumps in the road and there’s seemingly no flex in the chassis. We’re told it's around 75 per cent stiffer than the previous DBS Superleggera Volante.

Of course, there’s also an Individual drive mode that allows you to benefit from the softer suspension setup of GT mode and the barnstorming throttle map of Sport mode.