The name is the big news surrounding the Aston Martin Valkyrie. Making its debut at the Geneva show, the hypercar adopts the ‘V’ naming convention of the Aston Martin brand.
The Valkyrie is being developed in conjunction with Formula One designer Adrian Newey, previously responsible for the World Championship-winning cars of Red Bull Racing.
The Geneva display car effectively only shows the visual appearance of the Valkyrie – its chassis is still under development. Aston Martin describes it as a Formula One car for the road and its mid-engined powertrain combines a 6.5-litre V12 Cosworth unit to a KERS energy-recovery system developed straight from those on F1 cars.
The publicly-stated goal when the collaboration with Red Bull Racing was announced was to produce a car which could match a Formula One car around Silverstone.
The production version of the Aston Martin Valkyrie is expected to launch in 2019, and the price is estimated at £2 million each – and every one of the strictly limited production run has already been sold.
Supercar to follow?
Reports at the show suggest that Aston Martin will use the reputation established by the Valkyrie, along with development elements such as the aerodynamic package, to launch a mid-engined supercar.
Likely appearing in 2021, the new model would rival such cars as the McLaren 720S, which has launched at the Geneva event. This would mark a significant shift from the brand’s current model range of a number of variations on a front-engined coupé theme, all sharing the same platform.
Aston Martin is on a significant expansion and regeneration programme at present – the DBX SUV is also expected in 2019, built in a brand-new plant converted from enormous MOD hangers at St Athan in Wales. A revival of the Lagonda badge is also believed to be in the pipeline.
