Azernews.Az

Aston Martin on Tuesday unveiled its exclusive new Vanquish Volante. Powered by a twin-turbocharged 5.2l V12 engine making 614kW and 1,000Nm of torque, it claims the crown as the most potent open top series production car the British marque has produced, Azernews reports, citing Times Live.

A wind-in-your-hair version of the Vanquish coupé that broke cover in September last year, the Volante swaps a conventional roof for an electronic folding fabric soft top that can be opened in 14-seconds and closed in 16-seconds at speeds of up to 50km/h.

Actuated by a metal switch on the centre console, Aston Martin says it offers a level of thermal insulation directly comparable to its coupé sibling and a class-leading stack height of just 260mm when retracted. This means it can be stowed under the tonneau behind the seats without any interruption to the seamless flowing lines of the car's body.

As both Vanquish derivatives were designed in unison, overall rigidity loss is surprisingly minimal with Aston Martin claiming the convertible maintains structural performance closely matched to that of the coupé. The complexity of the K-fold roof does incur something of a weight penalty, with the Volante having to haul around an extra 95kg.

Fortunately this has a negligible effect on straight-line performance. Top speed mirrors that of the coupé at 345km/h while the 0-100 km/h sprint takes 3.4 seconds; a tenth slower than the Vanquish coupé. Fernando Alonso might notice but us mortals won't.

Other Volante-specific tweaks include a full set of recalibrated Bilstein DTX intelligent adaptive dampers that take into account the vehicle's additional weight. Like on the coupé model these are complemented by lightweight 21” forged alloy wheels shod with Pirelli P Zero tyres. A carbon ceramic brake system is standard as are three selectable drive modes (GT, Sport and Sport+) and four traction control settings, namely On, Track, Off and Wet.

As seen in the DB12, Vantage and Vanquish coupé, the Volante's interior is home to Aston Martin's in-house developed infotainment system accessible via a centrally mounted 10.25" touchscreen. Supporting wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, it sits in front of an overhauled centre console offering an essential selection of analogue switchgear designed to give the driver and passenger intuitive access to functions such as temperature adjustment, fan blower speed, seat heating/ventilation and volume control.

A 10.25" digital instrument cluster is standard as are 16-way adjustable sports plus seats, Alcantara/semi-aniline leather upholstery and a 15-speaker Bowers & Wilkins sound system. As on all Aston Martin models, Vanquish Volante customers can explore endless bespoke and customisation possibilities via the Q by Aston Martin personalisation service.

Said to be priced around £400,000 (about R9.4m), the Aston Martin Vanquish Volante is available to order now, in limited numbers, with UK deliveries set for the third quarter.