Aston Martin has abandoned plans to compete head-on with Ferrari and McLaren by creating an entire family of mid-engined supercars, according to a new report.
The British luxury brand has already put the $2.5 million V12 Valkyrie into production and is still pressing ahead with its smaller brother, the circa-$800k, V8-powered Valhalla. But plans to create a junior supercar based on the 2019 Vanquish Vision concept (seen in the gallery below) that would rival Ferrari’s 296 GTB have been iced.
That’s according to Aston chairman Lawrence Stroll, who told Autocar that the idea of volume was no longer important for the company’s mid-engined cars. Stroll said that the focus for the brand’s supercars was profitability and exclusivity, which is why Aston was dropping its program to create what he comically described as a “normal car” with its engined located behind the seats. Well, we guess $300k supercars are probably normal for some people.
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The Canadian boss said that the Valhalla, the brand’s rival to Ferrari’s SF90 and its first-ever hybrid, will be “as impressive” as the Valkyrie, though we’ve no doubt he means relative to its price (the Valhalla will cost around a third as much), rather than in absolute terms.
While the SF90 is built around an aluminum chassis – Ferrari saving composites for its hypercars – the Valhalla features a carbon structure created with the help of the firm’s F1 team. Power comes from a turbocharged 4.0-liter V8 from Mercedes-AMG that drives the rear wheels through an eight-speed dual-clutch transmission and is supported by two electric motors, one for each axle. Work on the drivetrain has improved total system output from 937 hp (950 PS) during development in 2021 to more than 1,000 hp (1,014 PS) in its current form, Autocar reports.
Though Aston Martin wants the Valhalla (see gallery below) to be exclusive, it won’t be as rare as the Valkyrie, which was limited to 150 units for the hardtop and 85 Spiders. Aston will build 999 regular Valhalla coupes, but expect a roadster and an even more hardcore version to follow.
