Uploaded November 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Oregon has shown us some of the most impressive roads we've experienced yet on Road Trip America.
This route, the Columbia River Highway, was America’s first ever planned scenic roadway, and it’s pretty easy to appreciate the motivation. It’s gorgeous here. Especially in the Fall. Especially when you’re spearing through it in a new Aston Martin Vanquish Volante. Okay, so this is not a flag-waving choice. But Aston’s Super GT oozes old-school glamour, unashamed excess, and the company’s own roots stretch right back to almost exactly the same time period. Aston Martin formed in 1913, just as the Columbia River Highway project began.
Fortunately, Aston Martin hasn’t whithered and died (despite trying multiple times in its mostly calamitous history), and nor has the appeal of driving in this incredible environment. The original route has been absorbed into Highway 30, and it’s a brilliant and ever-changing road. From long, wide open hairpins to tight, narrow lanes and bridges, you really feel like you’re nestled within the landscape, not just passing through it from afar. Perhaps it’s a bit narrow for the 823-bhp Vanquish, but at least the rock faces and dense forest mean the wickedly potent V-12 is amplified to almost scary levels. What a thing.
-Editor-at-large Jethro Bovingdon
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TOC
00:00 Intro
01:08 Aston Martin Vanquish Brief
02:20 Columbia River Highway History
02:40 Vanquish Specs
03:23 Road Impressions
04:42 Vanquish Impressions
05:37 IPD Volvo Tuners
08:40 Vista House/Highway 30
11:28 Vanquish Drag Race
14:42 Scappoose Vernonia Highway
Oregon has shown us some of the most impressive roads we've experienced yet on Road Trip America.
This route, the Columbia River Highway, was America’s first ever planned scenic roadway, and it’s pretty easy to appreciate the motivation. It’s gorgeous here. Especially in the Fall. Especially when you’re spearing through it in a new Aston Martin Vanquish Volante. Okay, so this is not a flag-waving choice. But Aston’s Super GT oozes old-school glamour, unashamed excess, and the company’s own roots stretch right back to almost exactly the same time period. Aston Martin formed in 1913, just as the Columbia River Highway project began.
Fortunately, Aston Martin hasn’t whithered and died (despite trying multiple times in its mostly calamitous history), and nor has the appeal of driving in this incredible environment. The original route has been absorbed into Highway 30, and it’s a brilliant and ever-changing road. From long, wide open hairpins to tight, narrow lanes and bridges, you really feel like you’re nestled within the landscape, not just passing through it from afar. Perhaps it’s a bit narrow for the 823-bhp Vanquish, but at least the rock faces and dense forest mean the wickedly potent V-12 is amplified to almost scary levels. What a thing.
-Editor-at-large Jethro Bovingdon
-----
TOC
00:00 Intro
01:08 Aston Martin Vanquish Brief
02:20 Columbia River Highway History
02:40 Vanquish Specs
03:23 Road Impressions
04:42 Vanquish Impressions
05:37 IPD Volvo Tuners
08:40 Vista House/Highway 30
11:28 Vanquish Drag Race
14:42 Scappoose Vernonia Highway
