Aston Martin Debuts the Vantage for North America

It’s impossible to go 202 miles per hour on Manhattan’s Park Avenue (and you shouldn’t try) but that’s where Aston Martin’s opulent showroom is, just down the road from Ferrari. The cars follow the money, and the new Vantage that had its North American debut in New York this month carries a price tag of US$191,000.

Aston is aiming to produce “the definitive front-engine, rear-wheel drive sports car,” powered by a four-litre AMG-sourced twin-turbo V8 engine producing 655 horsepower and 590 pound-feet of torque. Shifting through an eight-speed ZF automatic gearbox (there’s no manual option), it can reach 60 mph in 3.4 seconds. The Vantage can be ordered now, with deliveries this summer.

In other words, the Vantage is a traditional supercar in an age of rapid electrification. There isn’t an auto company in the world that isn’t aware of what’s ahead. And according to Alex Long, who was in New York and heads product and market strategy for Aston, the company is collaborating with California-based Lucid on an electric Aston that will appear in 2026. They’re having the naming discussions now, but few details are available. Lucid, which fields the ultra-fast Air Sapphire , is a pioneer in developing lighter and smaller components for EVs.

The two-seat Vantage has a lot of overlap with the DB12 (a 2+2, meaning it has two decent sized seats in the front and two smaller ones in the back] and it’s a venerable name in the Aston Martin universe, going back 70 years. The new model has been greatly reworked, with modifications to the chassis, engine, body design (the grille is 30% larger), and an all-new interior and bespoke in-house infotainment system with the company’s first touchscreen. Horsepower is up 30% and the torque is up 15%.

The DB12, seen in convertible form, is a Vantage relative that offers 2+2 seating.
Jim Motavalli

Technical types can thrill to such revelations as “a stiffer-yet-lighter front engine cross brace for increased torsional rigidity and lateral stiffness between the front suspension towers,” as described by Aston Martin.

The new Vantage is indeed techy for an Aston Martin, and offers active vehicle dynamics, adaptive shock absorbers from Bilstein, and an electronic rear differential. There’s a launch control system that manages torque to keep the car planted when it takes off for the horizon.

“[Owner] Lawrence Stroll has made a huge investment in Aston Martin,” Long says. “He believes that in supercar positioning, we have to go all the way.” The Vantage on display was certainly gorgeous in eye-popping Podium Green, which has some blue in it. Apparently the tried-and-true but dark British Racing Green comes off as black in photographs. The vivid green contrasts with a neon-like Lime Essence stripe around the rocker panels and tail.

There was no driving component, but racing driver Darren Turner, a three-time Le Mans winner and an Aston Martin development driver, was on hand.

“I’ve been with the Vantage development program from the beginning,” Turner says. “Our aim with the driving modes [which include Sport, Sport Plus, and Track] was precision behind the wheel.” There’s no “comfort” mode—if you want to commute or buy groceries, you use Sport which, Turner says, “is not too hard on the suspension.”

Long says the Vantage is “practical” because it has a big trunk, but it’s young couples and empty-nesters who won’t mind the absence of a back seat. As for what’s under the hood, Aston’s customers are still thrilling to the sound of a V8 engine and are not pushing for an EV. But with a European ban on internal combustion by 2035, and similar directives in American states, EVs are inevitable under the Aston banner.

Inside the Vantage, with a new infotainment system.
Jim Motavalli

Meanwhile, Aston has other models coming. The ultra-exclusive Cosworth V12-powered Valkyrie (priced at up to US$3.5 million for the track AMR Pro version) will be replaced by the even-more-potent Valhalla at the end of this year. Only 999 Valhallas will be built. The 937-horsepower Valhalla, with an AMG V-8 and two electric motors, will be Aston’s first plug-in hybrid and priced around US$800,000. The Valkyrie was a huge hit in terms of garnering publicity for the brand, and the Valhalla will similarly serve. Just 150 Valkyrie coupes and 85 Spyders are being built, and production should be done by the end of 2024.

The DBX was an instant big seller for Aston
Jim Motavalli

Aston has put considerable effort recently into Formula One and GT racing, and there’s also the Vantage GT4 competition car, which (because of strict rules) shares about 80% of the road car’s structure and mechanicals. But the bonded aluminium chassis gains a custom roll cage.

Aston Martin sold 6,620 cars in 2023. When the company introduced its first SUV, the DBX, it quickly became the company’s runaway bestseller despite a high price tag, now at US$200,086. The DBX 707 (the number is the horsepower rating) ups the ante. SUV leadership is a common result among supercar enterprises that grit their teeth and build SUVs to fulfil consumer demand.

It may be a while before Aston Martin is an all-electric brand. Right now, it’s keeping the order books filled with AMG-powered supercars. But transition is ahead.

The Apple growth and profit machine is wavering, and the boost from price increases might not be enough to keep it going at historic rates. That dials up the pressure on Apple’s new chief executive, John Ternus.

The company saved the bad news for its earnings call, an hour after it posted its results for the September quarter, projecting that for the current quarter its high-margin services business will continue to slow and that its widely watched gross profit margin will continue to fall.

Apple AAPL -1.83%decrease; down pointing triangle shares had been flat in post-close trading but declined as much as 4% after the company made the projections, which fell short of Wall Street estimates.

The impact of high memory costs are weighing even more heavily on the company, Ternus and Apple Chief Financial Officer Kevan Parekh said on the company’s earnings call. Apple has stockpiled cheaper components purchased earlier, but those inventories are dwindling.

When Ternus took over as Apple’s third chief executive of the past 29 years on Sept. 1, he inherited sky-high expectations. The men he followed were among the most successful company leaders in American business history. Steve Jobs revolutionized consumer devices multiple times. Tim Cook expanded Jobs’s creation to spectacular heights.

The expectations are reflected in Apple’s huge valuation. Oppenheimer analyst Martin Yang noted that Apple stock trades at 36 times next year’s expected earnings, a premium to the overall market, even though its earnings are only expected to grow 1%, which is slower than its tech peers.

“We see insufficient upside to justify the premium,” Yang wrote in an investor note, adding that Apple needs to boost iPhone sales growth and turn around its slowing services business to make him more bullish.

Investors have bid up Apple shares because it has been a port in the AI storm—a reliable and capital-efficient business that stands apart from rivals which are spending hundreds of billions of dollars racing to the AI frontier.

While others invest in data centers, Apple has been pouring its own cash into buybacks and dividends. But that safety may be challenged if Ternus can’t speed up Apple’s innovation engine.

Apple’s lagging performance in AI was evident when its new “Siri AI” chatbot arrived this past quarter. Its long-maligned assistant was already stale the day it arrived, surpassed by agents such as Instinct and Muse that can complete multistep tasks for consumers, while Siri still sets kitchen timers.

Apple needs to give people reasons to buy its devices as they get more expensive. The company raised prices across the board last quarter to help offset higher costs. Without compelling new features, a big question is whether consumers will slow the frequency of iPhone upgrades.

The new iPhone Duo appears to be a bright spot. Consumers are scooping up the $1,999 foldable smartphone despite mixed reviews—so many that Apple can’t keep up with demand. Shipping dates jumped out to January soon after the device went on sale, a disappointment for the normally reliable Apple supply chain.

Apple said its revenue grew 12% in the September quarter, slightly ahead of Wall Street’s expectations. Its widely tracked gross profit margin, at 47.9%, also came in just ahead of analyst estimates.

Apple will need to find new growth avenues because a reliable engine during the Cook era—the services business—is slowing. Courts and regulators worldwide have limited Apple’s ability to charge developers big fees to distribute apps through its App Store, the biggest component of the company’s services segment.

One of its most lucrative App Store fee generators has been the ChatGPT app from OpenAI. Around the time Apple accused OpenAI of trade-secret theft this past summer, OpenAI began redirecting potential subscribers to pay via its website instead of the App Store, skirting Apple’s tollbooth.

Apple’s valuation has bumped up against a ceiling in recent weeks. Six times it traded above a $5 trillion market capitalization intraday before finally closing above the threshold, which it has already fallen back below.

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Aston Martin Debuts the Vantage for North America

Apple’s growth engine is showing signs of slowing, as rising costs, weaker services growth and AI competition challenge its profitability. With John Ternus taking the helm, the pressure is on to reignite innovation and sustain investor confidence.