2026 Aston Martin Vantage S | First Drive

A couple of years ago, Aston Martin completely reimagined the Vantage. From the chassis, to the engine tuning, to the tires, all of the performance elements of this car were completely worked over. So, not a couple of years later, and they're coming to us with this. This is the S. Now, the question is, what exactly is the S, and is it any better than what they just gave us? We're going to find out. So, the engine does not change. It's that same fantastic AMG-sourced four-liter twin-turbo V8 that Aston Martin has used so well. They're tuning it a little bit differently here, so you're going to get a tiny bit more horsepower out of it. Nothing that feels necessarily, like, substantively grander or quicker, but your zero-to-sixty time goes down to 3.3 seconds. The transmission, too, gets a little bit of a tweaking. It's still, again, the same steadfast ZF eight-speed transmission that has really quick shifts and brilliantly selects gears when you're going around turns. I've been driving this all afternoon, and I have not used the paddle shifters once just because I think it's great, but now it can handle a little bit more of that high-end torque, and who doesn't want that? The chassis tuning is probably where you see the most change here. A lot more stiffness. You get some changes in the transmission mount. There's been changed to the camber tow and caster up front. The rear is now, the subframe is completely mounted to the body, so laterally you're a lot stiffer, which means around turns you're definitely going to feel a lot sharper, a lot crisper. Can we just take a quick second from driving and dynamics and performance and just appreciate how beautiful this thing is? So whenever we talk about these cars, we do talk about performance driving, but I've also been really curious about just what it would be like to daily drive something like this. Aston Martin has really been pushing the envelope into more of the sort of luxury performance space, trying to own a little bit more of a unique niche, and I actually think that even in spite of that, this is a very drivable and comfortable car. I would 100% use this as a daily driver. I think there are some practicalities in it that are really terrific. You have some safety features. You have adaptive cruise control in here. You have a fairly decent-sized trunk, given what this thing is, just so that you can carry some things with you. Certainly it's more practical than some other sports cars. So to me, I think it does really double duty. I don't feel like the suspension tunings, even in the most aggressive track mode, doesn't feel like super harsh and unpleasant, not something that I would not drive on a normal occasion. And there is still that Aston Martin elegance and sophistication to it, even though they are trying to fine-tune this into a little bit of a sharper weapon. The other elements of the car, the steering, the braking, the braking especially, not super grabby at the top of the pedal, but really, really confident brakes, really make you feel like, okay, I can go fast here because I know I have that stopping power. I think everything is tuned in concert, really spectacularly, and they make the Vantage S a very well-rounded package. The interior of the Vantage is gorgeous. The materials are first class, and of course, they'll spec the car however you'd like. Such is the level of customization. Everything feels intuitively placed, and it's comfortable and quiet. One nitpick that I have is the amount of shiny piano black on the center stack in the switch gear. I wish they'd gone with a metal finish. For the money, I think buyers deserve it. I'm also not completely sold on Apple CarPlay Ultra. It's an interesting interface, but it's not as dynamic looking as Aston's native system, and it's likely regular phone connectivity does enough. Good thing is, you get to choose. Pricing on the Vantage S starts at $199,500. That's only $5,000 more than the standard Vantage, and I think one could easily justify that price increase. I have no idea if Kelley Blue Book can help you find a fair purchase price on something like this, but I mean, I dare you to click on that link and just see. I'm kind of curious, so tell me in the comments. So the Vantage S, definitely more of an evolution, not a revolution. And the question I guess I would ask is, does Aston Martin ever feel like they will be perfect? I don't know that I can answer that, but I do know that I never want them to stop trying.