The ‘near-production’ Aston Martin Valkyrie is even better than the concept

It’s rare that a production car is more spectacular than its initial concept. Just over a year since we first clapped eyes on the spectacular Valkyrie in concept form, Aston Martin has revealed a near-production version of its landmark collaboration with the Red Bull Racing Formula 1 team…

Every little helps

Aston Martin and Red Bull Racing’s ground-breaking new £2.5m hypercar has come a long way since its introduction last summer. It’s got a new name, for starters — the appropriately dramatic sounding Valkyrie. Furthermore, Red Bull engineering guru Adrian Newey has been honing the downforce-driven exterior in the pursuit of Formula 1-like levels of performance, while the Aston Martin Design team — spearheaded by Marek Reichman — has developed an LMP1-style interior that’s, unbelievably, big enough for two ‘large’ adults. Other new features on the ‘95% finished’ exterior include minimal exposed headlights and a chemically etched aluminium Aston Martin badge, which is a staggering 99.4% lighter than the regular enamel badge. Deliveries of the V12-powered, ultra-lightweight hypercar are slated for 2019 — ample time for other manufacturers to figure out how they will compete with this game-changing machine.

Photos: Aston Martin