The Best GT Cars In 2025 | Feature

We’re not sure anyone still uses grand touring cars to actually go grand touring. After all, it’s long been easier, cheaper and faster to fly, even if that does mean getting up at an unfathomable hour only to get to the airport and find out your flight’s been delayed, and eventually cramming yourself into a hilariously small seat in a pressurised tube full of recycled farts.

Perhaps it’s because of this that the notion of cocooning yourself in a leather-clad cabin and pointing a long, thrusting bonnet towards sunnier climes still has an undeniable romance and glamour to it, and why the GT car is still around. If you’ve got the cash to splash, and have some big road trips planned for 2025, here are our picks of the very best GT cars on the market.

8. BMW M8

The reborn BMW 8 Series has never quite captured our imagination like the superbly cool original did back in the ’90s. It’s always felt more like it should have been badged as another 6 Series rather than a halo 8er.

That said, the M8 still has plenty going for it. You can now only get it in Competition guise, which means 616bhp from a 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8, four-wheel drive and 0-62mph in 3.2 seconds. It’s also got plenty of space, and the areas where it falls short as a razor-sharp sports car help its GT cred. Best of all, by modern BMW standards, it’s actually quite handsome.

7. Mercedes-AMG GT

For its second generation, the Mercedes-AMG GT has pivoted away from being an out-and-out sports car and more towards the kind of car its name suggests it should be. Sure, you can still get a hardcore Pro version, but overall, the GT’s gotten bigger and more relaxed, and gained a pair of rear seats and a wider range of powertrains.

Our pick for munching the miles would probably be the regular, non-hybrid GT 63, which utilises Merc’s ubiquitous and much-loved 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 to lovely effect, packing a healthy 577bhp.

6. McLaren GTS

It’s a curious one, the McLaren GTS. It arrived at the tail end of 2023 to supersede the old GT (although good luck telling them apart), and Macca still insists it’s a pure grand tourer despite the engine being where you’d expect it to be in a shouty, out-and-out supercar.

Still, the mid-engined setup has more benefits than you’d think. Forward visibility, for one, is superb, and it also frees up room for two generous luggage areas to swallow up your Rimowa. Combine that with McLaren’s knack for making its cars ride spookily well, and its dogged determination to keep using gloriously chatty hydraulic power steering, and the GTS starts to make a lot more sense.

5. Maserati GranTurismo

A car whose name literally means ‘Grand Touring’ has to be good at, well, grand touring, right? Thankfully, that’s very much true of the new Maserati GranTurismo. You’d think only having a V6 might be a disadvantage when everything else on this list has eight or even 12 cylinders, but the twin-turbo Nettuno – shared with the MC20, and packing up to 542bhp in the GT – is a fairly lovely six.

It’s unapologetically a GT, with four proper seats in one of the best interiors (in terms of quality at least) that Maser’s done in years, and a relaxed setup incorporating air suspension. Oh, and if you fancy it, there’s also a massively powerful 751bhp Folgore electric version.

4. Aston Martin DB12

The Aston Martin DB11 was, frankly, a bit of a disappointment. It wasn’t as pretty as an Aston should be, was a bit incohesive to drive, and had an interior that looked and felt dated pretty much as soon as it was rolled out.

The DB12 fixed all that and then some. Its 671bhp V8 – the same one that’s in the AMG GT, but with some Aston-specific bits – is a sweetheart of an engine, with a gorgeous soundtrack and all the power you could possibly want. It’s far prettier than the old car, and the interior is leaps and bounds ahead. In fact, perhaps the only disadvantage is that its newfound verve has eaten a little into its pure GT credentials – but it’ll still devour a long drive at a moment’s notice.

3. Bentley Continental GT

Ever since its introduction in 2003, the Bentley Continental GT has always been arguably the grand touriest of grand tourers. Big, heavy, refined and with a gorgeously plush interior, it is unapologetically not a sports car.

That continues with 2024’s fourth-gen car, despite it now only coming with Bentley’s new plug-in hybrid powertrain that pairs a 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 with an electric motor for a massive 771bhp. It’ll still whisk you down the autoroute in supreme comfort, surrounded by one of the best interiors in the business, but it’s also now more than capable of holding its own once you start hitting the twisty mountain roads.

2. Ferrari 12Cilindri

The Ferrari 12Cilindri (that’s Dodici Cilindri if you’re being proper about it) tows a very fine line between being a grand tourer and a full-on supercar, but it still has a bonnet the length of a cruise ship containing a mighty V12 engine, so is still very much deserving of its GT status.

That engine is what really makes the 12Cilindri – it sort of had to be when the car’s named after it. Not only has Ferrari managed to sneak a 6.5-litre, 9500rpm naturally aspirated V12 past regulators, but it’s somehow extracted 820bhp without the aid of any turbos or electrification. Its opinion-splitting styling is growing on us by the day, too. Good job, Ferrari.

1. Aston Martin Vanquish

The top two spots on this list realistically had to be occupied by the two ultra-exclusive, V12-powered GTs launched in 2024, and it’s the reborn, 824bhp Aston Martin Vanquish that takes our top spot. Why that and not the Ferrari?

Largely because this is a list of grand tourers, and it’s the big Aston that we can more picture ourselves setting course for the south of France in. It has a brighter, plusher interior and a more relaxed attitude, having been designed from the outset to swallow up miles. It also looks, to our eyes, absolutely sensational. It’s mega-expensive and extremely exclusive, but if you can get your hands on one, we can’t think of much better for an epic, continent-crossing road trip.

What about the rest?

Well… we’ve kind of covered everything. The GT car is a rare thing in 2025, and there just aren’t that many on the market.

The Ferrari Roma coupe was quietly killed last year, and while you can still get the Spider, it surely won’t be around for much longer. More tragically, the quirky GTC4Lusso shooting brake was dropped to make way for the Purosangue SUV. Sigh.

The Rolls-Royce Wraith would have been worthy of inclusion had it also not been superseded by the all-electric Spectre. While that’s a lovely thing, we’re still not convinced the infrastructure’s there for a proper long-distance adventure in an EV to be enjoyable. The massively appealing Lexus LC500 also met its end in Europe last year, although it’s still on sale in the US and Japan. We suggest you treasure it if you live in one of those countries.

Any real grand touring cred the Aston Martin Vantage had has gone out of the window with last year’s update – it’s now a balls-to-the-wall sports car; maybe even a supercar.  On the flipside, the Porsche 911 Turbo probably would be quite a pleasant companion for a long-distance lope, but we just can’t bring ourselves to call it a true grand tourer, sentimental traditionalists that we are.

For the same reason, there are any number of posh SUVs and saloons that would be just as adept as the cars on this list at eating up the miles, but we’re really not going to stretch the definition that far.