At The Quail at Monterey Car Week, Aston Martin unveiled a surprisingly beautiful car that looks and feels different than most of the supercars on then lawn. It’s called the Valen, and it looks very cool.
Aston just unveiled the car, so I don’t have a ton of information yet. I do know it’s a front-mid-mounted V12, it’s rear-wheel drive, and makes 838 horsepower (850 PS).
More importantly, just look at it:
The grille isn’t quite what you’d expet from an Aston, but I think that’s OK. It’s an aggressive but also elegant looking supercar in a great color.
The interior… I’m not sure I quite love it. It’s maybe a bit gaudy. But the rest of it looks cool.
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Update: Looks like the embargo broke. Other sites are reporting that it’s a 5.2-liter connected to an eight-speed ZF automatic, and that there will only be 150 of the most powerful Aston Martin ever made (by the brand’s bespoke Q Division). Pricing is probably going to be well into the seven figures. It’s hardly an everyperson’s car, but it looks neat. That’s all I got; I’m off to find other cars that I can afford, which is to say, I’m surfing Marketplace. There’s some gold here in Monterey:
As a whole it’s not too bad, the colorway’s not doing it any favors. I’d love to see that color in a gloss finish and the black bumpers just look like a crash repair or a base model work truck.
I’m sure the color looks better in person, but it definitely doesn’t photograph well. Alanis reviewed the Prelude recently and pointed out that it looked like a Toyota with the squinty front end. I’m seeing Toyota here too.
My first thought was “did they just use Corolla headlights? If not, why not?”
I was ok with it until I saw the rear end. Looks like Rubbermaid Corp had a field day engineering all the formed plastic jutting out the rear. The front looks like either a Dodge Charger or a Mustang. What a hot mess…
Nice Mustang.
Pricing is probably going to be well into the seven figures.
This seems a bit aggressive on the part of AM, but I could be wrong.
What I love about car week, yesterday at Laguna Seca there was an Aston Martin Valhalla parked in the dirt next to an early 2000’s beat to shit Silverado.
It looks like a mishmash of a Camaro and a Camry. A bitchin’ Camyonaro.
Yeah I’m seeing a lot of 2026 Toyota in that front end. And I think a lot of those current Toyotas look great as Toyotas, but probably not what Aston Martin was going for.
It’s kind of a mullet; Toyota business in the front with a Camaro party in the back.
“Valen” sounds like someone trying to say Van-Halen but they’re having a stroke
You identified their target demographic!
I guess TVR really isn’t dead.
The jarring shift from the brown exterior to the red/white interior is something.
Funny, it doesn’t look Minbari.
In Valen’s name, I was wondering why that sounded so familiar!
I read this as the Aston Martin Van Halen and immediately I started singing Panama