CALLUM Vanquish Shooting Brake Teased

Like an album that gets remastered using modern technology to make good what has been an issue since its original release, whether that be a lack of low end, poor soundstage, or muffled sound, the Aston Martin Vanquish has been remastered. Ian Callum was the man behind the design of the original Vanquish, and like a producer craving a remaster for his work, Callum had not been entirely happy with the final outcome of the Aston Martin Vanquish for a while. This was the result of constraints to the available budget at the time; so the CALLUM Vanquish 25 is his work, remastered for modern times.

We first saw the CALLUM Vanquish 25 appear in the autumn of 2020 with a hefty price tag of £450,000. The idea was to sharpen the Vanquish outline and review every original detail to see what could be improved. The Vanquish 25 Grand Tourer also features collaborative designs by Bremont and Mulberry who take care of the dashboard timepiece (more on that later) and matching luggage respectively.

The car sits 15mm lower to the ground than the original Vanquish and rides on larger, forged aluminium 20-inch alloys. Attached to these are high-end carbon ceramic brakes – a big improvement over the original’s steel disc brakes. Handling has been looked at too with the addition of Bilstein dampers that help to reduce cornering roll, something that has been a bit of a bugbear amongst owners since the original first appeared. The 5.9-litre naturally aspirated V12 engine gets a tweak too, with careful tuning offering 580bhp and an integrated diffuser exhaust to improve the engine note. The exterior of the car also benefits from changes to the front bumper – removal of the spotlights and a change to LED allows some extra space to add cooling flow venting for the ceramic brakes.

Inside, the seats are lower than the original with added extra support. Overall, the driving position and feel has been carefully looked at and improved, with the steering wheel sitting closer to the driver and featuring a slightly thinner more tactile rim. Oh, and that Bremont dashboard bespoke clock? It can also be removed to be worn as a watch.

You might be wondering why we are revisiting this remastering of the Aston Martin Vanquish now. The reason is due to a recent intriguing social media post by Ian Callum a couple of days ago – the post featured a side image of a Vanquish with a caption saying: ‘Taking our Vanquish to a new form’ which can surely only mean one thing; content with the way the CALLUM Vanquish 25 turned out, the ex-Jaguar designer has been contemplating a few additional changes to the original Vanquish 25 and giving us a shooting-brake version.

When we get to hear more about this sleek looking new Vanquish is anyone’s guess, but it looks like a fair bit of engineering has gone into the profile that we can see here, though I’d expect the core of the remastered CALLUM Vanquish 25 to remain basically the same.

Images: instagram.com/iscallum, callumdesigns.com