A symbol of such power. And 43% thinner than a human hair.
Impossibly crafted
The Aston Martin Valkyrie is more than just a sports car. It’s a true Hypercar, taking F1 technology to the road. That pushes obsessions with weight-saving and aerodynamics to all new levels. Every milligram counts, and everywhere we can reduce weight and improve aerodynamic flow, we do. All our cars carry the famous scarab beetle-inspired Aston Martin wings badge, and the Aston Martin Valkyrie is no exception.
However, the jewel-like enamelled badge used on other models presented two problems - it was weight the car didn’t need, and, as it sits proud on the bonnet, it interrupted the airflow, changing the aerodynamic properties of the car. The solution? Lay the badge into the paint itself. The Aston Martin Design Team created an aluminium badge just 40 microns thick, and 99.4% lighter than the aforementioned enamelled one.
A quarter the size of a human eye.
The world's smallest brake light.
How small can you make a brake light? Every bulb in the world has to carry a legal mark, showing that it’s passed the relevant safety checks. In our case, that legal mark defined the size of the bulb we made - the lit part of the lamp is the same size as the legal text it has to carry. That’s as small as it can possibly be. And that size doesn’t stop it from being incredibly powerful.
Two high powered LEDs point upwards, and we then use a lightweight periscope optic to bounce the light towards the rear. The result is, amazingly, the smallest and brightest high mounted stop light in the world. Periscope optics, a staple in submarine technology but not commonly used in the automotive industry, are also used in the indicators. The aerodynamic demands of the body left no room for traditional indicator housings.
Designed by Space Shuttle engineers, the carbon blade of Valkyrie is capable of impossible performance.
Even at 220mph
Without in any way spoiling its sublime silhouette. Yet again, we had a problem that had no previous solution in the automotive industry. No windscreen with that level of curvature had ever required a wiper. Our search took us to the US space program. Only a supplier for NASA could provide the from-another-planet performance we were looking for. A single blade.
Apache hydraulics, for the road.
Every inch of Valkyrie is engineered to the impossible.
Responding like a reflex to live inputs from driver, road and aerodynamic load, to bleed off excess downforce and keep it within limits the tyres can take. A technical marvel with seventeen different actuators powering the hydraulics. As well as three different controllers – skyhook, groundhook and aerohook – finetuning damping force to improve the dynamics of its Formula 1™ derived double wishbone suspension. Arming the Aston Martin Valkyrie with virtually no body roll.
Limited more by pilot, than machine.
Designed to stick to the road, Valkyrie is capable of taking corners at over 3.3G
That is, it’s the sidewards acceleration of the car, felt in corners as you turn. The higher the g, the more mechanical grip the car has during cornering. And as we all know, the better the grip, the better the performance. Most road cars produce between 0.6 and 0.7g. Top-of-the-range sports cars tend to top out at around 1.1g.
The highest revving, most powerful naturally aspirated engine.
On the road.
By starting impossibly small. Cosworth took the idea of a humble straight three and effectively developed a quarter of an engine. This allowed them to test and develop the combustion system they wanted to use on a scaled-down and more precisely manageable platform. When everything from chamber shape to valve angles and compression ratio was perfected, they took the resulting straight three, put another end to end, then two more back to back, to create the basic configuration for this V12 marvel.