It’s been a long wait, but Aston Martin has finally released images and technical details of what it says is the production-ready Valhalla — a mid-engined supercar targeted at the part of the market traditionally occupied by Ferrari, Lamborghini and McLaren.
Aston first announced it was going to build this car five years ago, although it was originally under the name AM-RB 003. As that clunky title suggested, it was to be jointly developed by Aston Martin and Red Bull Racing, which had already partnered on the Adrian Newey-designed Aston Martin Valkyrie. Back then, we were told that the 003 would use a hybridized V-6 turbo engine that Aston would develop itself and would go into production in 2021. Shortly afterwards, it was renamed, becoming the Valhalla.
The Valhalla then wound up delayed as Aston fell into a financial crisis, with the next significant update coming in 2021: Tobias Moers, now Aston’s CEO-before-last, announced the Valhalla was being switched to an AMG-sourced twin-turbo V-8. This would run a flat-plane crank configuration (as in the Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series) rather than the conventional cross-plane arrangement of other AMG-powered Astons. Hybrid assistance would come from a trio of electric motors — one for each front wheel to allow for torque vectoring, plus a third integrated into the transmission.
Which, basically, is the car you’re looking at here. There have been some more changes, but the production Valhalla shares its basics with the 2021 concept. Design is pretty much unchanged, but the final car gets a larger rear wing. There are also some significant power upgrades beyond the output Moers initially promised. Plus, less welcome, a price increase.
Three years ago, Moers said the Valhalla would make 739 hp from its V-8 with the e-motors adding another 200 hp. But the production car increases those numbers to 816 hp and 247 hp. respectively, which will put it right at the sharp end of hybridized all-wheel driven supercars. Okay, so Aston’s 1063 hp peak doesn’t quite match the stratospheric 1184 hp of the Ferrari F80. But it means the Aston will be more powerful than both the 1015-hp Lamborghini Reveulto and 1016-hp Ferrari SF90 XX Stradale. The supercar power wars show no signs of abating.
The Valhalla will be based around a carbon fiber monocoque designed to both reduce weight and carefully shaped to optimize the flow of air over the car’s many aerodynamic surfaces. According to Aston’s figures — quoted as the pretty pointless fluid-free “dry” weight — the Valhalla will tip the scales at 3650 pounds, which is 250 pounds less than Lamborghini claimed for the Revuelto dry. Performance will be brutal, the Valhalla almost certainly quicker off the line than what looks like a very conservative 2.5-second 0-62 mph claim. We’d surprised if the reality wasn’t much closer to two flat.
Downforce will also make a significant contribution to the Valhalla’s performance. The rear wing sits flush with the bodywork until rising 10 inches when the car’s Race mode is selected. There are also active front wing elements, plus a vast underfloor diffuser. With all these components working together as hard as they can, Aston claims the Valhalla will be able to make up to 1320 pounds of downforce in Race mode. It could make more, but Aston has chosen to use the active systems to deliver that peak over a broad range of speed, rather than letting it continue to increase: from 149 mph to the 217-mph top speed. Apparently this “gives the drive an assured sense of stability and predictability as they explore the outstanding dynamic potential of the car.”
Aluminum subframes hang on both ends of the carbonfiber monocoque to mount suspension components, with pushrod-operated springs and dampers at the front to improve airflow under the bodywork. Adaptive Bilstein dampers are standard, as are Brembo carbon-ceramic brakes with 16.1-inch diameter discs at the front and 15.3-inch discs at the rear; these are gripped by six-pot and four-pot monobloc calipers, respectively. In the most aggressive Race dynamic mode, the Valhalla will use its aerodynamics to help slow the car by moving the rear wing element to create drag. The three electric motors also allow regenerative braking, feeding energy back to the 6.0-kWh battery pack.
An eight-speed dual-clutch transmission is standard, but with reversing always done under electrical power. The electric motor at the rear is integrated into the gearbox where, as with the similar system on the Ferrari F80, it adds assistance (or regenerates) through the even-numbered gearshaft only. Meaning that, when the V-8 is turning an odd-numbered ratio, it will be possible for the Valhalla to be in two gears at once.
It’s going to take some time to get used to the Valhalla’s design, this combining the proportions of a low, mid-engined supercar — complete with dihedral-opening doors – with some very traditional Aston styling elements. The most incongruous of these details is definitely the full-width radiator grille at the front of the car, sitting in an area that cars in this segment normally reserve for smaller, more sculpted air intakes. The even-more extreme mid-engined Valkyrie had a similarly shaped hood and headlights, but looks better without an size-XL grille underneath. At the rear, the Valhalla’s multi-element taillights are similar to those of the limited-run front-engined Valour.
The Valhalla’s cabin is also short of the sort of luxurious touches common to Aston Martin’s plusher GTs; it looks to be all business in there. Sure, there are some colored leather panels, but most of the touchable surfaces seem to be made from carbon fiber. with minimal conventional switch gear and two display screens. Also, in the official images, the car has serious-looking bucket seats with minimal padding over carbon fiber frames.
Well before driving it, we already know the Valhalla is a radical departure for Aston Martin. The Valkyrie might have shared the same mid-engined layout, but it’s also a brutally uncompromising V-12 hellion designed more for life on track than road, and built with the close cooperation of Red Bull Racing. The Valhalla has been developed by Aston itself, and it has to be a much friendlier everyday proposition. Considering the excellence of the alternatives from Ferrari, Lamborghini and McLaren, the Valhalla is going to need to be spectacular to succeed in this tough segment.
Aston now says that production will be limited to no more than 999 cars, although with the obvious possibility of a separate roadster version getting its own allocation. We’re told that pricing will start around the $1,000,000 mark – a $200,000 increase on what we were told to expect back in 2021. Initials deliveries to customers will take place in the second half of 2025.
One interesting question is what Adrian Newey will make of the Valhalla. After the end of the Aston/ RBR collaboration, he led the creation of a “Valkyrie-plus” track-only hypercar in the form of the forthcoming Red Bull RB17. But Newey’s defection to Aston Martin’s Formula 1 team means he is now back inside the corporate tent; will he want to get involved with other non-race projects?
You Might Also Like
