More Potent V-12 To Power Aston Martin’s New Vanquish, Due This Year

Aston Martin has a 25-year tradition of powering its flagship model with a V-12 engine, and apparently that will continue. The British manufacturer has released some details about a new twin-turbocharged V-12 that will debut in Aston’s upcoming flagship, which apparently will be called the Vanquish, reviving a name first used 23 years ago.

The new engine, Aston says, pumps out 824 horsepower and 738 lb-ft of torque. That’s 64 more horses than you’ll find in the company’s most powerful current V-12, used in the limited-edition DBS 770 Ultimate. ”One last tour before extinction,” says the Aston Martin website for the 770 Ultimate, so get it while you can. Actually, you can’t, at least from Aston: The 300 coupes and 199 convertibles Aston is producing are already sold.

The new V-12 uses a strengthened cylinder block and connecting rods, redesigned cylinder heads with new camshafts, plus new intake and exhaust ports. Spark plugs were repositioned, and there’s new higher flowrate fuel injectors.

“The V-12 engine has long been a symbol of power and prestige, but it is also a statement of engineering passion and technical prowess,” said Aston Martin chief technical officer Roberto Fedeli. “This unparalleled engine represents nothing less than the dawn of a dazzling new V-12 era for Aston Martin.”

The flagship that will be powered by the new V-12 apparently won’t be the Vanquish Vision Concept that the company displayed in March of 2019 at the Geneva Motor Show. That car, which Aston told us “previews the design language of Aston Martin’s first series production mid-engine supercar,” has apparently been shelved, along with its planned V-6 turbocharged hybrid engine. The upcoming Vanquish, we hear, will be a conventional front-engine, rear-wheel-drive GT car. It’s expected to break ground later this year.

It’s likely no coincidence that word of the new V-12, and its accompanying mention that a fresh flagship model is on the way, arrives about the same time Aston Martin’s first-quarter financial report was released. It shows that Aston, according to Reuters, “made fewer cars and burned more cash than analysts anticipated, sending its shares 7 percent lower.”

In fairness, that reflects in part the downtime required to change over from one model to the next, as Aston has been busy building new or freshened models this year. According to Motor Trend, by the end of this year, “Aston Martin will have on sale four models that will have been redesigned or heavily refreshed in the previous 18 months.”

“Our first-quarter performance reflects this expected period of transition,” Aston chairman Lawrence Stroll said. According to Forbes, fashion mogul Stroll has a personal net worth of $3.9 billion; with that Aston Martin the car builder, and Aston Martin the Formula 1 team, should be on firm ground, though it’s rumored he’d like to sell 25 percent of the latter.

Regardless, we can’t wait to see what Stroll has up his sleeve for Aston Martin, both in the showroom and on the track.

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