Aston Martin tease midengined hypercar
ASTON MARTIN’S profits have been a story of peaks and troughs in recent years — stories of massive losses followed by stories of incredible profitfilled rebounds. But none of that has stopped the British marque from carrying on with some of the most ambitious hypercar projects on the planet.
Most people know about the V12powered Vulcan and the most powerful naturally aspirated car made; the Valkyrie. One of the former lives right here in New Zealand, and one of the latter is slated to arrive in due course, too. And now Aston Martin intends to add a third powerful hypercar to the mix.
The brand has officially teased the next chapter in its highpower story, with the release of the first image of ‘‘Project 003’’.
There’s not a lot that can be ascertained from the image, other than that the concept will have an enormous diffuser of some kind rammed underneath its rearend. Aston Martin has provided some details on what lies under the skin, but much of it had already been revealed in late2018.
The Project 003 will be powered by a midmounted turbocharged hybridpetrol powertrain. It will be road legal with ‘‘outstanding levels of downforce’’, ‘‘active suspensions providing nextlevel precision’’ and it will ‘‘possess classleading dynamics on both road and track’’ — according to the manufacturer’s press release.
That’s all well and good, but talk is obviously cheap. In an interview with Auto Express last year, Aston Martin CEO Andy Palmer said that the 003 will slot below the Valkyrie — as a perhaps more direct rival to the likes of the McLaren Senna. The car’s engine is said to be a turbocharged V6, featuring a kinetic energy recovery system similar to the KERS tech we see in Formula 1.
Just 500 coupe examples will be built globally (in righthand drive and lefthand drive), and it’s scheduled to arrive in late 2021. Aston Martin also hasten to add that it will feature space for luggage, and other creature comforts that will make it more usable than the likes of the Valkyrie.
‘‘It was always the intention for the Aston Martin Valkyrie to be a onceina lifetime project,’’ added Palmer in the release.
‘‘However, it was also vital to us that Valkyrie would create a legacy: a direct descendent that would also set new standards within its own area of the hypercar market, creating a bloodline of highly specialised, limited production machines that can exist in parallel with Aston Martin’s series production models.
‘‘I’m thrilled to announce that this car is the Project ‘003’, and our next step into a dynamic and exacting arena.’’ — driven.co.nz