Aston Martin. The Bondiest of all the car marques. The one with a name near the back of the Formula 1 grid. It’s all got a bit confusing since the days of the DB9, hasn’t it? The long-time front-engined GT brand has branched out into ultra-exclusive mid-engined machines for those who find a Vanquish a little bit too cosseting, with price tags starting at roughly $1 million and going up from there. Valkyrie. Valhalla. Are they ever going to run out of V-words? It won’t happen today, because the company’s latest move is to take a set of shears to its 1,064-horsepower hybrid. Say hello to the Valhalla Spider. Not Volante, Spider.
Right, so what is a Valhalla? Well, it originally started as a joint project between Aston Martin and Red Bull Racing, but it hasn’t quite turned out nearly identical to the AM-RB 003 concept it started life as. The initially forecast three-liter V6 has been replaced with an 817-horsepower version of AMG’s twin-turbocharged four-liter V8. An eight-speed Graziano DCT with an integrated electric motor provides drive to the back, a pair of electric motors provide drive to the front, and the whole arrangement comes affixed to a carbon fiber tub. Figure a combined output of 1,064 horsepower and a curb weight of around 3,850 pounds. Similar figures to a Corvette ZR1 but accomplished in a different way.
Initially, Aston Martin announced the Valhalla coupe with dihedral billionaire doors and a purported production run of 999 units. That entire 999-unit run doesn’t appear to have entirely sold out, so how’s slicing the roof off sound as a way of whipping up further interest? After all, even though these things have eye-watering performance and aneurysm-inducing price tags, they’ll mostly be driven on the road to static events by men who’ve pondered a trip to Turkey.
As such, the Valkyrie Spider features a removable fabric roof that, when installed, restricts top speed to 124 MPH. With the roof off, it’ll do 217 MPH, but speeds faster than 124 MPH are unadvisable for the textile toupee. Owners can spec a carbon-fiber hardtop that brings enclosed speed up to 217 MPH, but there’s no word yet on whether the hardtop is actually stowable within the car once removed.
Obviously, the open-air treatment has resulted in some alterations to the billionaire doors, which are now exclusively hinged below the windscreen. No matter, they still go up, although entry and egress with the roof installed is likely compromised over the coupe, even with new Touring seats and a reworked greenhouse shape, with ease of getting in placed front of mind. Beyond that, the Valhalla Spider is pretty much the same as the coupe, just with a taller roof scoop and an opening to the skies above.
Curiously, Aston Martin hasn’t officially stated just how many Valhalla Spiders it expects to build. Could it be that demand is softer than expected, or that even the wealthy are starting to catch hypercar fatigue? After all, with more seven-figure four-wheeled propositions than ever before, surely nobody can catch them all. Could it be that a mid-engined supercar is a strange left turn for a brand renowned for its long lineage of front-engined grand tourers, and that clientele hasn’t necessarily made the jump further upmarket? I don’t know, but I do know that the Valhalla Spider makes its public debut in Las Vegas. Fitting, that.
Top graphic image: Aston Martin
