Aston Martin’s Valhalla is here and it is, if anything, more super than predicted. What was supposed to be an output of 998 horsepower is now some 1,064 dyno-tested Society of Automotive Engineers-approved horses. That 66-pony revision may not be Earth-shattering, but, on the other hand, Aston makes much of the fact that the Valhalla’s top speed of 350 kilometres an hour (217 miles per hour) is electronically limited.
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That might have something to do with the difficulty in finding tires capable of withstanding that speed, especially when the Valhalla’s active aerodynamics are capable of a whopping 600 kilograms (1,322 pounds) of down-force anywhere between 240 to 350 km/h.
That it maintains such fantastical aerodynamics across such a wide breadth of speed tells us Aston is actually limiting aeros at top speed — “bleeding excess down-force,” in official parlance — and the only reasons I can think it would do that is because a) it’s looking for more top speed; or b) it’s worried about overloading the tires. That the marque’s electronically limiting top speed would seem to imply b), that the low-profile doughnuts are the limitation.
As for where all this rubber-abusing power comes from: the base powerplant is an 817-hp twice-turbocharged 4.0-litre V8, sourced, as so many low-volume automakers do these days, from Mercedes-AMG. Aston says the engine is “bespoke,” but we’ll assume that has more to do with its state of tune than the hard bits. That said, it does rock a flat-plane crank, the ne plus ultra of getting ferocious noises out of a high-revving V8. And those 817 ponies do mean the engine is putting out 204 hp for every litre of displacement, a fairly magical figure for anything internal-combustion.
Throw in one electric motor built into Aston’s eight-speed dual-clutch transmission and two more on the front axle for an additional 247 horses, and that brings the total to the aforementioned 1,064 hp. More importantly, the combination is good for 811 pound-feet of torque, which is why the Valhalla takes but 2.5 seconds to accelerate to 100 kilometres an hour from zero, not hardly tardy, especially considering that the Valhalla weighs 1,655 kilograms (3,648 pounds). That may be a little more than half-a-second slower than Rimac’s all-electric 1,888-hp Nevera, but it’s good enough to keep up with Ferrari’s SF90, XX or otherwise.
It’s also worth noting that because there’s an electric motor at each wheel, instantly-responsive torque-vectoring is part of the Valhalla’s repertoire and that in electric mode, the Valhalla, like the aforementioned Ferrari, runs on the front motors alone. Yup, a front-wheel-drive Aston Martin supercar. It even backs up using just the two front electric motors, there being no reverse gear in the eight-speed DCT.
One oddity about the Valhalla – or rather Aston Martin’s press release about the Valhalla – is that while the company makes much about this being its first plug-in hybrid and extolling the technologies that help maximize battery performance, it pointedly doesn’t mention how big the battery is. We know, for instance, how many cells there are (560) and its operating voltage (400 volts) but there’s no official mention of how many kilowatt-hours it can store, or how many kilometres the Valhalla can manage in its aforementioned EV mode.
That said, the most consistent speculation is that the battery will store about six kilowatt-hours of lithium-ion; and the Valhalla can eke out some 15 kilometres of driving on battery power alone.
Besides all those active aeros, the fastest-ever Aston Martin uses Formula One-style push-rod suspension up front to keep the huge tires — 285/30ZR20 Michelin Sport Ses — flat on the ground. Even the suspension gets in on all the aerodynamic hijinks, as moving the front dampers inboard means the Valhalla benefits from improved airflow within the wheel arch which, in turn, reduces the drag.
In the rear, there’s a complex five-link system based on variable Bilstein ultra-reactive dampers that can offer refinement in Sport mode; and what Aston Martin calls “increased support” if you dial things up to full Race spec. Tires in the rear, meanwhile, are even more gargantuan 335/30ZR21s.
The brakes seem likewise ready for Le Mans. The front discs measure no less than 410 millimetres in diameter, and the rears are equally outsized — probably another indication of how much down-force is available at the rear of the Valhalla — at 390-mm. They’re made, not surprisingly, of carbon-ceramic: six-piston calipers grip the front discs, four-pistons do the back, and both sets are monoblocks, challenged as they will be by both the Valhalla’s speed and the strain that down-force puts on all the dynamic components.
They’re modulated by brake-by-wire, which Aston says not only improves power, but “allows seamless integration of regenerative braking.” Lastly, the entire chassis is made of carbon-fibre, but that’s so commonplace these days that it’s hardly worth noting.
Inside, there are shift lights that Aston swears are “informed” by Aston Martin’s F1 drivers; a central touchscreen that displays the amount of regenerative braking, as well as the source of said regeneration (from the front two motors when the driver applies the brakes; from transmission-mounted motor when they just let off the gas); and a whole slew of adjustable ADAS driver aids that can be tailored to road or track.
Aston says production will start in the second quarter of 2025, and will be limited to 999 units. No price has yet been formalized, but Driving estimates the base MSRP will start somewhere around CDN$1.5 million. That’s pretty much smack-dab between Ferrari’s SF90XX and Pagani’s new Utopia. Judging from the latest performance figures at least, the Valhalla deserves to be in the conversation with both.
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