High Life

HIGH LIFE #10 Jul 2017 101 W hat do you getwhenyou bring together two of theworld’s most esteemed motoring brands? Apparently a car so advanced that it transcends the realm of the supercar and enters the rarified air of the hypercar! The Aston Martin Valkyrie, set to hit the streets in 2018, is a joint project between luxury sports car manufacturer Aston Martin and leading Formula 1 team Red Bull Racing with the goal of producing a road car unlike anything seen before. The idea is to create an unprecedented fusion of form and function – a car engineered to be supremely enjoyable as a road car but with the capability of performing like no road car before it on a race track and in line with that of today’s LMP1 Le Mans sports prototypes. The project is being undertaken by Red Bull Racing’s Chief Technical Officer and F1 veteranAdrian Newey, Aston Martin EVP and Chief Creative Officer Marek Reichman and Aston Martin VP and Chief Special Operations Officer David King. Built around a lightweight carbon fiber structure, the Valkyrie boasts radical aerodynamics to provide unprecedented levels of downforce in a road-legal car. Much of this downforce is generated through underfloor aerodynamics – the brainchild of Newey – which has allowed Reichman to craft a breathtaking dramatic form that elegantly expresses both the Valkyrie’s cutting-edge dynamism and the unmistakable essence of Aston Martin. At the car’s heart is a new, mid-mounted, high-revving, naturally aspirated V12 engine with the potency to achieve a 1:1 power-to-weight ratio.