Aston Martin Vantage S review: should be pointless, actually utterly sublime

Why has Aston Martin made a Vantage ‘S’?

The real reason is ‘because that’s how the fast car industry works’.

Scenario: company releases new car. Trumpets it’s the best possible thing they could ever make. Then 18 months later company announces tweaked, honed, improved version. Now this is the one to have. You need to upgrade.

The absolute gold standard master of this process is of course Porsche. Reveal a 911 as a Carrera and Carrera S, then introduce a GTS just as it drops out of people’s frontal cortex. Then sprinkle in a GT3, Dakar and a Carrera T. A Turbo S and a Touring. All of a sudden you’ve spun one niche model into an entire range of want-that-one obsession.

That’s why Mercedes sells AMG GTs with four cylinders, a V8, and a hybrid. It’s why there’s normal Ferraris, then Ferraris with Assetto Fiorano packs, then Ferrari Speciales. Get this process right and there are always customers hammering at the factory door. Get it wrong and you’re probably McLaren.

Is Aston Martin good at this game?

Traditionally, no. Aston Martin reveals a car then leaves it on sale. If you’re lucky there’s an ‘S’ version with more power and tweaks, but Aston’s approach is usually more subtle than its rivals.

Has the same thing happened again?

At first, it looks like it. The gorgeous Vantage S sprouts a new front splitter, rear ducktail ridge and side skirts optionally hewn from glossy carbon fibre, with optional liveries daubed on top. Be careful – some of the spec possibilities are eye-meltingly tasteless.

The add-ons you see add 40kg of downforce. Apparently, unseen chances to the floor create another 111kg. Great, except you need to be doing the 202mph top speed to use it…

Is there more power?

Yes, but ignore the power. Seriously. I know it’s hard to ignore 671bhp in a car about the size of a BMW M2. It’s like opening up your locker at the swimming pool and trying to ignore a great white shark inside.

But don’t get distracted by the insane power – it’s only increased 15bhp and the torque has remained pegged at 590lb ft. The S has the same top speed as a standard Vantage, and because it’s trying to channel all that fury through the rear tyres, it’s only 0.1s faster from 0-62mph.

Like I said – ignore the power.

But if the power is insignificant and the bodywork only matters when I’m at jail speed… what’s the point?

You have to go looking for it. This is a car that reveals itself patiently. But it’s a fabulously complete car now. Don’t think of it as a Vantage ‘S’. It’s the Vantage ‘Finished.’

When we first drove this generation of ‘baby’ Aston with its wider tracks, unhinged power and dramatically improved cabin, there were still many foibles. The car would lose body control on a challenging road, and unstick its back tyres as the suspension heaved in protest.

The steering has a meaty weight but lacked the clarity and crispness you’d like in such a thuggish machine. And the gearbox simply wasn’t a patch on Ferrari or Porsche’s superior twin-clutch paddleshifters.

Is it all sorted now?

Mostly. It’s not perfect, but that might not matter for reasons we’ll come back to. But first, the improvements.

Aston Martin quietly acknowledges that the standard Vantage doesn’t brim with the confidence you’d want in such a muscular lil’ hot rod, so it’s recoded the Bilstein dampers with new software. Then they broke out the geometry set.

Camber, caster and toe angles have been back to the drawing board. You can feel this on Britain’s more crowned, worn roads as the Vantage sniffs out truck grooves and tramlines hungrily. But you also notice the steering’s less numb, and you feel like you can lean on the S without it doing something that’ll have you inventing new swear-words in real time.

Did they stop there?

Nope. The eight-speed gearbox – which lives at the back to balance the Vantage’s 1,745kg kerbweight – is now anchored to slightly softer mounts. Sounds weird, but that extra flex is there to balance out the effects of rear subframe now being bolted to the aluminium body instead of fixed to rubber bushings. It’s all about give-and-take, y’see.

You might presume an ‘S’ model is simply going to be harder, stiffer, angrier, more tiring… but this is a Vantage that’s learned to tame its superpowers

Aston says “rear spring aid stiffness has been reduced to balance compression and rebound for improved low speed ride quality.” And they’re right. You might presume an ‘S’ model is simply going to be harder, stiffer, angrier, more tiring, as Daft Punk once sang. Maybe.

But it isn’t. This is a Vantage that’s learned to tame its superpowers and use them for good.

All of this is quite nerdy…

It is. No-one talks about their Aston Martin’s new camber and gearbox mounts down the pub. They talk about it having more power than a Ferrari Enzo. But this Vantage S is a very clever car, because it makes sense of all that oomph. And the result is a hugely entertaining machine – one to savour.

How so?

Because in the cars we mentioned up top – the Porsche, AMG and Ferrari hierarchy – there’s invariably some trick AWD system, a hybrid boost, or e-turbos. The Vantage has… none of these. For a new sports car in 2026 it’s actually incredibly simple.

A thunderous V8 up front, rear-wheel drive, and such a friendly balance you feel completely empowered to mess about with the eight-stage traction control. Even that’s simple. Hold down the ESP-off button, then twizzle the collar around the expensive glass starter button to select where the guardian angel intervenes. It’s subtle when it does so too – crucial for massaging the ego.

What else does Aston Martin need to improve?

Annoyances remain – mostly inside the Vantage. You can’t see out of the front as well as a Ferrari Amalfi or Porsche 911 – the bonnet line is too high and there’s no bodywork features to help you position the nose.

Behind you, its hips are simply too wide to enjoy the car on a B-road without slapping the cats-eyes and rubbing your paintwork off on nearby brambles.

Plus, Aston’s in-house touchscreen is already ageing – the sub-menus are fiddly, the responses slow, and the backlighting on the centre console is too dim. Picture the scene. It’s a sunny day. You think ‘let’s take the Aston’. But you can’t see if it’s in manual mode, or what setting you’ve chosen for the exhaust or suspension.

And we could complain about the unintuitive steering wheel controls or the naff dials, but we shan’t.

The Vantage S is glorious… it’s engaging and characterful but more involving than its rivals

Because overall, the Vantage S is glorious. It feels together and sorted – properly finished. It’s engaging and characterful but more involving than its rivals. And priced at around £170,000 before options, it’s cheaper than all its blue-blooded opposition.

It feels thoroughly modern and yet it’s somehow a throwback. Yes, the Valhalla hypercar will grab more headlines in 2026, but this S is Aston Martin’s best sports car for generations.