looks, feels, and sounds like this? Some people have accused the latest Vanquish of not quite

delivering on its promise. There are those that say it's not quite fast enough, considering

it costs the very thick end of £200,000, and there are others that accuse it of looking

a little bit vulgar on the styling front.

I'm not sure I agree with that at all, not in this beautiful green of this test car.

There is 565 horsepower from a 6.0-litre V12 under that bonnet, and a really fast paddle-shift

gearbox with which to access it.

This car only weighs 1700 kilograms. That's a lot by sportscar standards, but not when

you've got 565 horsepower inside. That is why this car can do this. You can get to 100

miles-an-hour in less than 10 seconds, and it'll do way the other side of 180 miles-an-hour.

Handling-wise, wow; this car is really, really nicely balanced. It's a lovely old-fashioned-type

rear-wheel drive, front-engine GT car which always means you get the best balance from

a car, and it means you can do this in it all day long if you want.

Watch; there is no way that you can do this in a car like this unless the handling is

really correctly sorted, and it is. There is a little touch of understeer, which is

nice; that just gives you this safety net, and then if you turn all the right systems

off and you press the Sport button, you can just muck about with this car for hundreds

and hundreds of yards.

Maybe the only trouble with the new Vanquish is that there is a previous Vanquish, and

that car was absolutely bursting at the seams with soul, atmosphere, and charm; call it

what you want. I guess the only way to tell if the new car lives up to that is to get

the old one, as well.

I can remember really vividly when the Vanquish first appeared, and it just seemed like such

a monster at the time. If you look at the numbers that it produced and what it cost,

it really was a bit of a monster. It cost £158,000. This was back in 2003-04. It had

460 horsepower from a 6.0-litre V12, and it weighed with a driver onboard, over 1900 kilograms.

It really was a big old beast of a GT car, and it still feels like that.

Do you know what; there's something about the old Vanquish that I really quite like;

the engine. Do you know it's not that far off the new car? Obviously it's nowhere near

as powerful, but the sound it makes, the response it has, and the performance it delivers, particularly

in the mid-range, I don't know, it doesn't feel that old to me in a straight line.

It still feels properly fast, this car, but there are elements, lots of elements I'm afraid,

that really do feel absolutely from yesteryear. This switch-gear is . . . even 10 years ago,

you could pick holes in it because you could go, "That's from a Fiesta, that's from a Jaguar

XK-8, and that's from a Focus." 10 years later, time has not treated the interior of the Vanquish

very well. It feels like an antique in here.

The dials; I can't really see what they say, but they look beautiful. Bottom line, you

downshift a couple of gears with the rather old-fashioned paddle-shift; manual, auto gearbox,

put your foot down and this is what you get. That is still properly fast.

Overall, the driving experience, I don't know; it really does feel . . . if you were being

polite, you'd call it quaint. If you were being honest, you'd call it a bit of a dinosaur.

Sometimes there's a place for dinosaurs in this world, and this car is not without charm.

It never was, and it never will be, because it's really the last big, hand-built, hairy

lairy, not-very-competent Astons. You have to love it for that, even though in every

way imagine it gets mullered by the new car.

Conclusion: There is no getting away from it. The old car feels old, and the new car

feels crazy-sharp, absolutely bang up-to-date. I'd underrated the latest Vanquish a bit until

now, but having spent this day in it, I think that it's sensational. I think it's a really,

really good GT car worth every single one of its £190,000. I didn't think I could ever

say that.