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:
$3900 for a Jeep Commanche — sign me up
I just can’t see James Bond driving this. It is not a brawler in a Saville Row suit. It looks like a brawler in a track suit.
The interior… I’m not sure I quite love it. It’s maybe a bit gaudy.
A bit gaudy? Sure, not like the stodgy exterior..
This thing is one Chevy emblem away from making countless Camaro fans very excited…
I thought it was a Camaro at first too!
Another Camaro nod. Especially the rear haunches in the top photo. And the orange interior accents are just horrid. Is the entire interior design team colorblind?
Generally speaking I’m okay with it and I like the orange color scheme, but the steering wheel is a bridge too far for some reason. I wonder if WheelSkins will have this in their size database. 😉
I haven’t read this or seen any other pictures, yet, but on seeing the topshot my first thought was “New Lamborghini looks pretty good” then realizing it looks awful Mustang-y and thinking it’s funny you can see a Mustang and say “nice Lambo” and the joke takes on a new meaning.
Then I realized it’s an Aston Martin. So I’m not sure what to think, but it looks pretty good. I guess I should read it now.
Looks like an LC 500 and a Slingshot had a drunken hookup.
Well I’ll be damned, a supercar that gives me the fizz. I didn’t think it was possible anymore…but the combination of retro-futurist vibes and callbacks to timeless Aston design cues really makes this look interesting without being totally overblown. And take a gander at that interior! It looks like it has surfaces that are nice to touch and I can only see one screen!
I like it. Beau should buy one and I want Uncle Adrian’s take at once.
So Aston Martin took that Acura concept car and married it to a Mustang Dark Horse.
Is it just me, or are Hypercars just all boring things these days?
Entire Last Decade: “Car grills are way too big when will this trend ever end”
Today: “WOW look at this amazing looking car …. the entire front end is the grill”
There’s some originality here – instead of most of the front end looking like a cheese grater, most of the front end looks like a furnace filter that’s never been changed. Or the cabin filter from the Autopian NYC cab, magnified 10x.
Fuck it, I now need to have The Bishop make an Aston Martin performance conversation van called the Van Halen
Yeah. I am ready to see that happen!
The Facebook algorithm is scary, isn’t it?
It looks not so bad. The Mustang style flat line above the lights doesn’t work on either car.
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
PANAMAAAAAA
I mean, the song IS about a car, after all
Makes me wish there was an Aston Martin Van Buren, with a pair of huge side-pipes
That’s funny, my brain pulled up…dammit, now it’s just Panama.