Before the pandemic in 2019, when it was still called the AM-RB 003, the Aston Martin Valhalla was first shown as a concept car. It is a hybrid beast with 998 horsepower, three electric motors, and a fire-breathing twin-turbo V8 that isn’t as good as the Valkyrie. After a long process of making, Aston Martin finally gave us the finished result. Also, only 999 carbon-tubbed supercars will be made and won’t be completed until 2024. It is estimated that the Valhalla will cost around $800,000. Aston Martin says that the car has changed a lot since the idea was first proposed, with help from its own Formula One team, to explain the price beyond the specs sheet. The change is due to the work of drivers Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll, whose father, Lawrence, bought a total stake in the British company in 2020. The car is also said to have technologies banned in the racing series, like active aerodynamics and a DRS-style wing used in F1. The car has a 4.0-liter flat-plane V8 engine that the company says is only found in the Valhalla. Two electric motors are on each front wheel, and the third one is connected to the drive. The second one works as a starter and a generator, giving the back wheels more power. The Valhalla can have all-wheel drive and torque vectoring on the front axle. Since the front motors can move the car backward, the drive for the combustion engine doesn’t have a reverse gear. Even though the maker didn’t say how much power came from the ICE engine and how much came from the electric motors, it’s clear that most of the power comes from dinosaurs. The aerodynamics of the Valhalla were tuned using the same computational fluid dynamics (a fancy term for flow modeling) software that the company uses to adjust the airflow around its F1 cars. With a full carbon tub and body, the vehicle can be shaped to make it stick to the road, especially at high speeds. At about 150 miles per hour, the car’s active front and back wings and sculpted floor create 1,323 pounds of downforce. Even if all these high-tech electronics are put on a carbon fiber frame, making many chassis might be challenging. The company says resin-transfer molding and autoclave-based methods will drive the vehicle’s carbon composite structures. For both to be done on a big scale, you need a lot of knowledge and tools. Remember that even though Aston Martin has an F1 team, it doesn’t make a lot of F1 cars every year. One thing is small parts, like wings. Another is cars and trucks in general. Aston Martin says that the Valhalla will bridge the gap between expert racers and the gentleman drivers who will buy the company’s first full-production mid-engined supercar. It has a driving position like an F1 car and a carbon fiber bucket seat. Before the car goes into production, Aston Martin will build more prototypes to ensure its technologies are as good as possible. They should hit the road by the end of the year.
