The current-generation Aston Martin Vantage is a looker that can cruise imperfect city streets as competently as it can carve a freshly paved canyon road, and even the convertible version can touch 200 mph. For those with $200K to spend on a sports car, the Vantage is a fine choice.
That kind of budget opens you to plenty of alternatives, of course, where you’ll find similarly priced cars that offer faster lap times, more luxurious pampering, or more attention-grabbing styling. Finding a car that blends those traits as seamlessly as the Vantage does, however, is a fruitless task, and the 2026 Vantage S makes it harder still.
Aston Martin
While the automotive traits commonly associated with the letter “S” (power, grip, generally improved athleticism) are boosted as expected in this instance, more intriguing is that the car’s $196,000 price tag is barely more than that of the base Vantage ($191,000, before the $3500 delivery charge). And the new car’s around-town manners and overall comfort haven’t been sacrificed at the altar of higher performance, either.
Here the S badges denote an addendum rather than a rewrite of the Vantage, and the car they’re attached to feels more like a new model year than a new model, full stop, but we can forgive the low-volume specialty carmaker for not behaving like a mass-production one, can’t we?
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That said, there are noteworthy updates. Let’s start with the powertrain. The Vantage S is propelled by the same Aston Martin–tuned Mercedes-AMG–sourced 4.4-liter twin-turbo V-8, but it makes 671 horsepower compared to the base car’s 656, a boost resulting from recalibrations to the engine mapping and turbo tuning. The peak torque figure remains a healthy 590 lb-ft.
This slight bump in brawn isn’t as noticeable as the way it’s delivered during spirited driving, which sees the revs fall and rise more quickly during gear changes in the S, producing a feeling not totally dissimilar to a lightweight flywheel. The V-8’s torque output also increases more rapidly as you move through the eight forward gears, translating to a more constant and predictable delivery of thrust. Aston also added travel and resistance to the accelerator pedal in pursuit of feel and feedback, which goes a long way in a car with a drive-by-wire throttle.
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The Vantage S’s top speed is identical to that of the Vantage, 202 mph, but thanks to some launch control fettering it can complete the good old 0-to-60 dash in a claimed 3.3 seconds, a tenth faster than the base coupe. Will the person trading in a standard Vantage for an S perceive that tenth of a second? No. Will they be able to appreciate and feel the difference in the way the powerband bends and snaps on their favorite car-testing road? Probably. Which is more significant in terms of pure driving pleasure? You know the answer…
Specs: 2026 Aston Martin Vantage S Coupe
Price, incl. $3500 delivery: ($199,500 base/$258,900 as-tested)
Powertrain: twin-turbocharged 4.0-liter V-8
Output: 671 hp @ 6000 rpm, 590 lb-ft of torque @ 2750–6000 rpm
Layout: two-door two-seater, front-mid-engine, rear-wheel drive coupe
Weight: 3538 pounds dry
0–60 mph: 3.3 seconds (manufacturer-claimed)
Fuel economy: 15 mpg city / 22 mpg highway / 18 mpg combined
Competitors: Mercedes-AMG GT 63, Porsche Turbo, Ferrari Roma/Amalfi
The engineers at Gaydon made similarly subtle but additive improvements to the chassis, starting with the way the rear subframe is mounted to the body. On the base car, two of the subframe’s six mounting points are attached to the main structure with rubber bushings in between. On the S, all six points are directly connected, which increases torsional and lateral rigidity by 5% and 30%, respectively.
This extra stiffness improves feedback from and control over the rear end, while more rigid mounting points at the top of the dampers and stiffer rear bump stops tighten up the overall suspension package. Toe, caster, and camber settings were adjusted accordingly for sharper response, as was the software that controls the Bilstein DTX dampers. The exact geometry and software deltas are presumably miniscule and more complexly related to one another than any layman could meaningfully comprehend, but the goals of increased front-end grip and agility are easy enough to understand and significant enough to feel in action.
Aston Martin
Aston Martin
But wait, there’s more: In a balancing act to preserve the Vantage’s GT-like characteristics of comfort and compliance, the chassis team also reduced the transmission mounts’ stiffness by 10% in addition to slightly softening the rear suspension’s helper springs in order to maintain what they like to call the car’s ability to “breathe” with the road surface. I drove the Vantage S for a few hours on roads ranging from the lolling Pacific Coast Highway to the topographic wonders of the Santa Monica Mountains and never felt that the Aston was out of its element, especially when taking advantage of the different drive modes (Sport, Sport +, Track , Wet, and Individual, which lets the driver configure the various exhaust, chassis, and powertrain settings to their liking).
Despite feeling at times uncomfortably wide in comparison to the lanes in the canyons above Malibu, this thing is very confidence inspiring, as you’d expect from a high-end modern sports car. A manual transmission and a hydraulic steering rack would increase the fun factor, but that’s not what this car is about, and there’s enough torque available to make gear shifts all but unnecessary in the mountains. Plus, the way the nose changes direction under the sportier drive settings is more than enough to induce large amounts of seat-of-the-pants joy as you pull off butt-puckering maneuvers.
Aston Martin
I would love to try one of these on a track or any other place without car-totaling walls and steep drop-offs an arm’s length away, but staying comfortably within the confines of the S’s envelope is still satisfying and engaging rather than numbly impressive. You don’t need to enter the territory of screaming tires and counter steer for this Vantage to reward the way you drive it.
And really, you don’t even have to push it to enjoy it. Even limited to around-town tootles, it’s a nice piece of kit. The knowledge of what a machine can do is its own kind of fun; imagine just idling at a stop light in an NHRA Funny Car, for instance. The Vantage S isn’t that rowdy, of course, but you can always hear and feel the V-8 thrumming. The carbon ceramic brake discs squeak and squeal sometimes, and a glance in the side mirror reveals some serious hippage. This isn’t an antisocial hot rod, but it isn’t lacking in high-perf personality, either.
It works perfectly well as a luxury coupe, too. Our tester spec included almost $45,000 worth of options, which, aside from those $10,800 carbon ceramics, consisted of purely aesthetic and comfort-oriented add-ons.
Aston Martin
Aston Martin
Aston Martin
Aston Martin
Are a few Alcantara interior elements, black badges, red wheel accents, and satin metallic finishes worth the price of a respectable brand-new car? As someone distinctly below the tax bracket that can afford a Vantage S, it’s hard to say yes, but as someone privileged enough to be paid to drive cars like this from time to time, it’s easy enough to appreciate these flourishes, and—in regards to the absence of the premium optional Bowers & Wilkins sound system in this car—miss them.
The cockpit layout and overall design are unchanged from the base car, with S-specific features limited to details like upholstery styling and materials, S-branding on the sills and seatbacks, and metallic finishes on certain controls. That’s not a bad thing, considering how lovely the tactile buttons and knobs and rollers are in the base Vantage. The 10.25-inch dash and same-sized console touch screens are carried over from the base car and now feature Apple CarPlay Ultra in addition to Android Auto compatibility.
Aston Martin
The most important interior options aren’t limited to the S, either: carbon bucket seats and the premium sound system. The standard system is just fine but noticeably tinnier and thinner sounding than the B&W in the Roadster tested last year.
The exterior updates follow a similar plot, which is to say it didn’t need fixing. This is still a fantastic looking car (the grille is a bit big, though), and the S additions are limited to fender badging, more aggressive hood vent vanes, and a rear lip spoiler. Hardly enough to change the overall look, though the wing does add some downforce (97 extra pounds at the car’s top speed, and although you can’t see them unless you have a lift or you really screwed up a corner, there are also new venturi tunnels and a revised air dam at the front end, which contribute an additional 148 pounds at 202 mph).
If I were configuring my own, I’d opt for silver versions of the S-specific optional 21-inch Y-spoke wheels, as the red-accented black ones on this test car, while neat to look at in isolation, make the overall presence a bit too sinister.
Aston Martin
However you spec it, though, the Vantage S will deliver a compelling combination of personal luxury, high performance, and a beautiful design that doesn’t rely on flashiness to draw attention. Should you buy one to dominate weekend track days? To make the tweenagers pull out their phones and record you at cars & coffee? To replace your S-Class? There are cars better suited individually to those demands, but how many can you name that can admirably check all those boxes at once?
2026 Aston Martin Vantage S Coupe
Highs: This is a hand-assembled, low-volume, rear-wheel-drive sports car that can compete with the big players on a variety of playing fields.
Lows: It isn’t cheap, not even relative to its upmarket segment, and even today $200K is enough for some very attractive two-car solutions.
Takeaway: The Vantage S blends old-school Aston Martin sensibilities with modern engineering in a package that delivers on its PR promises.
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Aston Martin
Aston Martin
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Aston Martin
Aston Martin
Aston Martin
Aston Martin
Aston Martin