Aston Martin Valhalla: A Million-Dollar Supercar Masterpiece
When asked about the Aston Martin Valhalla, the most honest reply is that it is exactly what you expect from a modern supercar. But as we delve into this supercar, we will understand why this is not a flippant comment, but rather a true reflection of the current era.
Aston Martin Valhalla: A Long Time in the Making
Seven years ago, Aston Martin introduced the prototype for what was then called the AM-RB 003, at the 2019 Geneva Motor Show. This name, of course, has now been replaced by a name taken from Norse mythology—Valhalla, the realm of heroic dead warriors where they prepare for an epic final battle. Conveniently, the name also begins with V, keeping with Aston’s traditional naming conventions. This name choice, however, reflects the automaker’s previous sponsorship ties to the Red Bull Racing Formula 1 team.
Significant changes have occurred since then, and not just the name. Aston and Red Bull cut ties following the 2020 F1 season after the former’s then-new owner, Lawrence Stroll, replaced the Racing Point F1 team’s name with the famous British marque. More importantly, the automotive landscape was evolving rapidly, as was Aston.
There was chaotic turnover within the internal ranks, and the Valhalla’s hybrid powertrain—first planned as an in-house-designed turbocharged 3.0-liter V-6 to match the performance of certain other, then-more-relevant hybrid hypercars like the LaFerrari and Porsche 918 Spyder—became a hybridized Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series-derived twin-turbo V-8. Compared to the GT Black Series, Aston gave it bigger turbos, a new inlet manifold, stronger pistons, and different camshafts to bump the output by nearly 100 hp and 50 lb-ft; the Valhalla is now the exclusive home of this engine.
When I sat in a mockup of the car on the Pebble Beach Concours’ lawn in August 2022, giggling at the Valhalla’s F1-inspired reclined and elevated-leg seating position, the projected specs for the V-8-based powertrain had jumped from a combined 937 horsepower and 738 lb-ft of torque to 1,012 hp and an undisclosed torque figure. None of this was finalized, Aston said, but it was all more than enough to cause me to say, “Please, I want to drive it, whenever it’s ready.”
A Long Wait…
Based on what Aston Martin said at that time about the Valhalla’s development cycle, I didn’t think another three and a half years would pass before I got the chance, but the production version’s hardware exceeds all those earlier expectations.
The flat-plane-crank, dry-sump, twin-turbo 4.0-liter V-8 makes 817 hp; combined with a total of 248 hp provided by two Aston-designed radial-flux permanent-magnet motors on the front axle and a third mounted to and working inside the new eight-speed dual-clutch gearbox (an Aston first), peak outputs are 1,064 hp and 811 lb-ft.
Along with the motors, the hybrid system is comprised of a 560-cell battery pack (engineers say it’s an off-the-shelf AMG battery that’s the only part of the hybrid system Aston doesn’t make) kept cool by immersing the cells completely in dielectric oil. The simplified upshot of the latter is, as chief engineer Andrew Kay told us, “We’re able to push energy into the battery and cycle it out very quickly [meaning recharge and deployment of electrical energy]. This is very good for track use, in particular.”
Unlike the original Valhalla concept and its Valkyrie big brother, the production model is also a plug-in hybrid, capable of driving the car in EV-only mode for up to 8.7 miles and an 80-mph top speed. For a deeper dive into the tech, you can read our previous rundown here.
… but Something Else Happened Along the Way
Über-nerdy/semi-pedantic readers may have already taken umbrage to the earlier use of the term “supercar,” but the company itself refers to the Valhalla as its first-ever mid-engine supercar. Surely, though, it’s a hypercar?
Yes, except for the Valkyrie’s existence, which apparently means marketing descriptions and talking points about “first ever” achievements are painted into a corner wherein “super” rather than “hyper” is the preferred prefix. Whatever. The Valkyrie is barely a street car; its $3-plus million starting price tag and production run of 285 examples make the Valhalla’s million-and-change MSRP and 999-unit inventory seem relatively pedestrian.
That’s an absurd statement in the real world, of course, but it speaks to something bigger in the realm of modern high-performance automobiles, in terms of both price and capability.
Perhaps the car enthusiasts among millennials, zoomers, and Gen Alpha are long accustomed to yet another new million-dollar car populating their social media feeds on a seemingly monthly if not weekly basis. Each one spits out once unheard-of power and torque figures, acceleration and lap times, and a list of tech specs, features, options, and bespoke luxury choices that’s longer than the Nürburgring’s full endurance layout.
For people who are a bit older but hardly AARP members, however, it’s easy to recall the shockwave dealt by something like the 627-hp, $800,000-ish McLaren F1 back in 1993–94. Or even more so the Bugatti Veyron a mere 20 years ago, the car generally considered to be the first million-dollar, 1,000-hp hypercar.
Nowadays? Since the day I sat in the Valhalla prototype at Pebble Beach, we’ve, as just one example, driven the Porsche 911 GT3 RS that only has about half as much horsepower and overall “exotic” tech but brings so much racing-derived aerodynamics and other hardware to the fight that it requires pro-racer skills to maximize on a racetrack. It’s suitability as a road car, given its suspension setup, is fair game for debate.
Stepping up, to varying degrees, in price, construction, and tech war-chest levels, MotorTrend in just the past few months has sampled the Ferrari F80, 849 Testarossa, Czinger 21C VMax, even the more “run of the mill but dizzyingly fast” Porsche 911 Turbo S, to name just a few. Hell, you can buy a hybrid Corvette ZR1X with 1,250 hp no one really saw coming back when the Valhalla was but a brilliant spark in Aston Martin’s and then-Red-Bull F1-design-God partner (and now Aston F1 managing technical partner) Adrian Newey’s collective eyes.
Just Drive It
Whether or not Teddy Roosevelt originated the proverb, it’s with all this in mind that “comparison is the thief of joy” has never been a more appropriate jumping-off point in hyperc… ahem, supercar terms. It’s also coincidentally appropriate here because we know the odds of ever orchestrating a proper comparison test among the vehicles listed above, perhaps other than the ZR1X, are zero, thanks mostly to Maranello’s longtime aversion to supplying publications like ours with cars for head-to-head showdowns. (Shame on you, Ferrari.)
No matter, because given how high the dynamic limits are, it’s a far more satisfying endeavor to drive something like the Valhalla on its own merits and for whatever experience it provides.
Make no mistake; the overall experience matters in a car like this. For quite awhile it hasn’t been good enough to be pleasant and thrilling on the road but perform like understeering crap on the racetrack, or be mesmerizing on the track but deliver a chiropractor’s billable-hours wet dream on the road. We already knew, mostly, this Aston Martin was a winner on all fronts after MotorTrend’s Angus MacKenzie sampled a “prototype” that was pretty much the finished article, save for some transmission calibration, a few months back.
On the Road
Unlike Angus, who only drove it on the Silverstone Circuit’s short Stowe layout in the U.K., Aston this time around gave us a 50-minute road loop to begin with. You might naturally look at the Valhalla’s pseudo Le Mans Hypercar appearance and low, wide stance and indeed expect a compromised daily driver, but that’s not at all the case. At least, other than the utter lack of luggage storage; there are some small cubbies in the door cards but no frunk due to that potential cargo space being eaten up by three high-temp radiators, the electric motors, and a racing-style, pushrod-actuated horizontally mounted inboard suspension layout.
Aston executed the latter solution in part because of the F1-style driving position; you sit so low that a conventional suspension would have raised the bodywork’s height too much to maintain an entirely clear sightline ahead. There’s no backrest angle adjustment, so you must adapt to the seating position, and the seats are bolted so low into the carbon-fiber monocoque tub that there’s no motor
