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:
Back needs more splitters stacked on top
+1 to the group that just sees “Expensive Mustang”
Valen is, of course, short for Van Halen.
High energy, entertaining, cutting edge for its time, the antithesis of subtle.
David, bro. You better be taking your wife on some awesome vacation before buying any of those after the new, old Jeep you built in your backyard.
75% gorgeous. That BBL rear end is unfortunate.
Mustang in the front, Lambo in the rear. Whole lotta ugly shite in the middle.
The front end screams out Mustang, and that alone makes it undesirable as an Aston Martin. Isn’t one of the main attractions of getting one is it being a gorgeous, obviously Aston Martin you’re driving? Not something people mistake for a Ford? This is a nice looking car overall, the interior looks great, but if I’m buying an Aston (lottery money?) , I’m skipping this design.
Counterpoint: No, it doesn’t.
I’ll give you some benefit of the doubt having seen it in person, but this thing has none of the elegance I’d expect of an Aston. The detailing is all over the place (what are those quad exhausts??) and the interior looks like a children’s play pen.
Those seats look horrifically unsupportive for what should be a supercar.
It does?
Aston Mustang
Nice body kit on that Mustang.
Must be a left over design from when Ford owned Aston Martin.
anything that costs over $100K better look fuggin amazing.
I assume for that price you can spec the interior in whatever color scheme you want.
it might look good, have to wait until I see one that isn’t painted with blood in your stool brown, with the interior colors out of a 90’s jet boat.
I was trying to put my finger on the name for that color, and you nailed it. And the interior colors completely clash with the exterior. I’m guessing this is a customer car, showing again that the ultra rich have taste that us plebs just don’t understand yet.
Blood in your stool brown happens to be my favorite color.
That BRZ looks great!
Reminds me of the AM V8, complete with contemporary Mustang looks, but this is a lot uglier (TBF, so’s the current Mustang). I realize the modernized DB5 looks were very stale and they had to do something, but is it all that new if it’s returning to a 60 year old well (DBS)? Color is horrible, too—looks like the wrap on some airbag-stanced POS Honda at a local degenerate car meet. I thought exotic cars were supposed to be dream machines, but I honestly think the low end sports cars are better looking and they’re probably better to drive than these things.
Holy Cyberpunk
That front 3/4 view makes it look like Aston was asked to design their version of the current Mustang.
Ah yes, “deconstructed” Aston styling as the gent says in the video.
If Chopped taught me anything, it’s that deconstructed is what you say any time you screw up a dish so bad that it is visually indistinguishable from what you were going for.
Apparently that also applies to cars! 0/10, does nothing for me other than remind me of the Dark Horse that was posted earlier today.
In Valen’s name…. Not the One
This is the coolest mustang ever
The front view reminds me of the late ’80s Vantage, in a good way. The grille is somehow so big that it kinda stops registering as a grille to me, which is why I think I kinda like it. But the rear is ruined by the steep ducktail spoiler and flat white accents, something a little darker like a slightly darkened silver probably would’ve done better here; to be fair the rear shots in this article are from a pretty unflattering angle. The orange interior accents are a big miss, the design is far too conventional to warrant such a bold color. They could’ve matched the exterior’s jasper red color and it would’ve looked great.
I… don’t love it. I think Aston has been dealing with the same problem for a long time now. They made the V12 Vanquish in 2001 or so, and it was just about the best-looking car in the world. Nearly every single Aston that followed was some variation on that shape for 20-odd years. If they released the 2001 Vanquish again as a 2027 model, it would still look fresh and new.
But what they’ve done since then is pinch, pull, fold, twist, and cut on that shape over and over again, because they have to do something new, something different, they can’t sell the same car for 25 years any more. And every time they do, every answer they come up with looks like a Vanquish but a little off.
This time, someone was thinking along the lines of “well, that origami/stealth fighter look, that’s in right now, what if we combined a Vanquish with that?” And you get this. A 2001 Vanquish with every rounded edge and corner sharpened.
Maybe I’m being too harsh, but this feels like a real swing-and-a-miss. It looks confused to me. It’s not a Lamboghini Egoista, all folds and creases and sharp-edged purpose, but neither is it a handsome and inviting grand tourer. It’s a trip through the Italian countryside as imagined by the folks who design Razor gaming mice.
Doesn’t matter, I’m not the target audience and can’t afford one anyway, but this, this is no V12 Vanquish.
Think about it like this; if someone pried the Aston badges off, put TVR badges all over it, and told you it’s The New Speed Twelve, would you feel differently about it?
It’s too gaudy for an Aston and too plain to be a TVR.
every answer they come up with looks like a Vanquish but a little off
The Uncanny Vanquish
I agree the Vanquish was the start of the golden era for Aston, but I think it peaked with the V8 Vantage in 2005. It’s been downhill (slowly) since.
Looks-wise, I think I’d take any other Aston.
that front end looks extremely like a mustang.
which I still don’t completely hate tbh, the interior would be nicer if the orange wasn’t such a clash with the exterior. that back bumper looks like it was tacked on from a completely different car.