Aston Martin’s Muscular Vantage Is a Combination of Sophistication and Aggression

Aston Martin builds all of its cars with a peak blend of performance and luxury. Still, their six-figure creations can lean more aggressively into one side or the other of that simple recipe.

For example, the DBD707 SUV hides a 4-litre V8 engine capable of 697 horsepower, but its overall size and endless creature comforts nuzzle a little closer to luxury’s embrace. The small-batch Valour muscles up on the performance scale with its prized manual transmission and 5.2-litre, 705 horsepower V12 power plant. Meanwhile, the recently redesigned DB12 is the company’s best attempt at splitting the performance-luxury gambit right down the middle.

Amid all of those supercar machinations, the Aston Martin Vantage sneaks away to play as the most performance-centric car coming out of the Gaydon, England, factory. Redesigned for 2025, the US$191,000 coupe reasserts itself as the most dedicated “driver’s car” in a very driver-friendly line. Should this be in pounds first?

During a road drive and speed testing event at Spain’s Circuito Monteblanco about an hour outside of Seville, the new Vantage proved itself as Aston Martin’s most accessible track-day companion.

Aston Martin is the most accessible day-track companion. Aston Martin

A first look at the latest addition to its very elite Warwickshire family pulls the eyes right to the newly extended rear wells that jut out around 21-inch, forged alloy wheels. While widening the car’s haunches, the wheel positioning reduces unsparing weight and gives the new Vantage a much more athletic pose.

Beyond that muscular base, the Vantage continues the modern Aston Martin styling tradition of riding the razor’s edge between aggression and sophistication. While the car’s Italian and Swedish rivals opt for prominent fins and big scoops, Aston’s designers keep the lines low, wide, and balanced from the signature highlighted grille to the understated aerodynamic spoiler.

In the performance specs department, the Vantage now packs an AMG-built, 4.0-litre, V8 twin turbo, front-mid mounted engine, capable of 656 horsepower, and a top speed of 202 miles per house and a 0 to 60 mph time of 3.4 seconds.

According to James Owen, Aston Martin’s senior manager of Vehicle Engineering, if the DB12 is the automaker’s distinguished overachiever, the Vantage is its less responsible, but equally attractive pugnacious sibling.

“The DB12 is a sports tourer and is positioned in the market as a GT,” Owen says. “It’s important for us to differentiate between Vantage and the DB12—to make sure that difference is clear for buyers and enthusiasts”

Owen describes the larger, pricier DB12 (starting MSRP of US$245,000) as more refined, while he considers the 2025 Vantage as playful and passionate. He even uses the word “brutish,” if such a term can be used for a technology-stuffed, six-figure sports car.

“The word that we keep hearing when talking about the Vantage is ‘fun,’” Owen adds. “That’s what we wanted to hear. We wanted to create a car that pulls at the heartstrings because it’s so enjoyable to drive. But, we wanted it to have a challenging character to it.”

Previous versions of the Vantage fit that punkier image. While always built for speed and powerful acceleration, the last couple editions of the Vantage were a little more harsh. The steering seemed more aggressive—demanding more input from the driver. The suspension felt tighter, deliberately transmitting more of the road’s surfaces and imperfections into the driver’s backside. If any current car in the Aston Martin line is a direct descendant of the automaker’s racing pedigree at Le Mans or in F1, it’s the Vantage.

Still, amid all this talk of driving fun and racing performance, Owen is quick to remind drivers that the Vantage is still an Aston Martin— steeped in the company’s signature identity of sophistication as the grownup’s more dignified supercar.

“The Vantage also has that added feature in its wheelhouse,” Owen explains. “Yes, it will respond to a driver pushing it in a racing scenario, but—with the technology we built into the car to stabilise the body at its most comfortable driver mode settings – the Vantage is still a very pleasant place to be.”

In keeping with such pleasantness, the interior of 2025 Vantage bears no resemblance to any race car. Handmade and stitched Haircell Leather stretches in all directions in any color the buyer prefers. The Sports Plus Seats are 8-way adjustable with heat or cooling on demand. The complete infotainment suite featuring the official Aston Martin Audio system from Bowers & Wilkins is a step up from the previous Vantage (and the current DB12).

The interior includes an infotainment suite featuring the official Aston Martin Audio system from Bowers & Wilkins. Aston Martin

Once the internal comforts and engineering feats come together, the experience behind the wheel is a sensual union of car and operator. Acceleration is smooth, yet immediate. The cornering is focused and nimble, and its rear-wheel drive allows for just enough play for the occasional drift at speed in turns.

A key piece of Aston Martin technology makes the Vantage’s elite performance potential accessible to more drivers. The ESP System (Electronic Stability Programme) debuted in the DB12, and the Vantage adopts the tech to its driver mode system. ESP takes information from multiple sensors around the vehicle, feeding the accelerometer data into a computerised concept of the car’s driving conditions and the ability of the operator.

Resulting algorithms react to those conditions, road surface issues, available grip, etc., tightening up the vehicle where necessary to aid the driver and offer as much feel and performance as the given operator can manage.

In its completed package, the 2025 Vantage is aimed at a specific buyer demographic—the driving enthusiast who puts thrills ahead of all-out creature comforts.

“For each project at Aston Martin, we have a customer profile in mind,” Owen says. “They have defined interests that highlight their demographic. For the Vantage, we consider a buyer who is perhaps new to the brand and looking into the ‘entry level’ Aston Martin. That’s a buyer who isn’t concerned with having a backseat or the DB nameplate. He or she thinks performance first and foremost.”

Steven Clark had the unpleasant task of firing a 24-year-old—twice. Once was in a brief conversation with the new hire, who’d showed up late or not at all four times in his first week at a construction job.

Then Clark had to do it all over again, this time with the guy’s mother.

She called him a few hours later, pleading to give her son another chance. When Clark told her no, things got heated before he ended the call.

“I said, ‘Look, you know, this is between us and your son. He’s the employee,’” says Clark, who is chief operating officer of a Fairbanks, Alaska-based staffing firm.

Gen Zers make up nearly one-fifth of the adult workforce, and bosses and recruiters say it often feels like the nervous parents who hovered over them through childhood and college are right alongside them. What began as the occasional parent ride-along to a job interview coming out of the Covid era is now full-on career “co-piloting,” said Jasmine Escalera, head career coach at résumé templates service Zety.

More parents are calling up hiring managers, applying for jobs on their adult child’s behalf, and even showing up—or lurking just off-screen—on Zoom calls to help navigate difficult conversations or go over benefits packages.

“The first time it happened, I was appalled,” says Clark, who has fielded calls from parents asking why their child didn’t get a job. “Since then it’s become more of a here-we-go-again reaction.”

Human resource professionals have expressed outrage on social media.

“Parents should not be calling employers to check on their application status or ask questions on behalf of their child,” says Lynne Alba, a director of talent acquisition and physician recruitment at a large health system on Long Island, who vented about the phenomenon in a Tik Tok video she reposted on LinkedIn.

At a recent job fair, a mother approached Alba with her daughter’s résumé, explaining that she wanted to work as a nurse. “While I appreciated that she was trying to help, I intentionally shifted my attention to her daughter. No matter what Mom said, I wanted to hear directly from the candidate,” says Alba.

Some parents who step in say it’s a challenging job market for young people, and that they would only intervene in extreme circumstances—social anxiety, a toxic boss, unfair treatment. There’s also a gray area of intervention that some see as an extension of the parental advice and networking help that’s been happening for generations.

Rick Wainschel last year published a post on LinkedIn asking his network to help his daughter, a recent college graduate, find a corporate entry-level position.

Wainschel, a vice president at an automotive marketing technology company, says he doesn’t think his outreach qualifies as helicoptering. “Well, maybe a little,” he said, before quickly adding he was being half tongue-in-cheek. “It was really merely just to help her get a network established. I just think the work world is a challenging place.”

Wainschel’s post, which was OK’d by his daughter on the condition he didn’t embarrass her, didn’t lead to a job but did result in productive conversations, he said. She found a job with a credit union on her own shortly after.

Recruiters and other HR types say aggressive parental involvement signals a lack of independence and raises fears that mom and dad will be checking in regularly if their kid gets hired.

What’s more, they say, such interference rarely, if ever, works.

The phenomenon is becoming so commonplace it made the agenda of human resources organization SHRM’s national conference in June. When James Harrell asked a room of 250 professionals if they ever had a parent calling on behalf of a young employee or coming to an interview, more than half raised their hands.

“The first time it happened to me, I got high up on my soapbox and I shook my fist,” Harrell says. “The 15th time I said, ‘OK, well, I gotta figure out how to do something differently.’”

Harrell helped run an apprenticeship program for high-school students while he was the human capital management chief for the San Antonio Independent School District. To run interference, the district introduced a “signing day” when parents could come and ask questions.

After a Gen Z employee at Nation’s Best Holdings, a chain of hardware and home goods stores, didn’t get an “exceeds expectations” designation on his performance review last year, HR chief Amber Little got a call asking why.

It was one of a number of calls from parents her office has picked up recently about issues ranging from negative feedback to understanding which health insurance plan to choose. Little has even noticed parents are now calling in sick for their adult kids.

“Instead of coaching them, they do it for them,” Little says. When it happens, she adds, “we encourage them to tell their child to come talk to us and we will walk them through it.”

A Zety survey of more than 1,000 Gen Zers found 20% had a parent attend a job interview with them.

“You get a sense it’s all hands on deck for some families,” says Keith Wolf, managing partner of recruiting firm Murray Resources in Houston. His office has received emails from parents seeking jobs for their children, and Wolf says he’s always wondered if the kids even knew.

Paul “PB” Branson, who graduated from the University of Missouri-Columbia in May, bristles at the thought. The 22-year-old says while he understands their anxiety, parents shouldn’t be joining their children’s job interviews or contacting employees on their behalf.

“That trend,” he says, “has really hurt my generation by creating this kind of stereotype that we need our hands held.”