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Aston Martin built an F1 car for the road and it – s amazing, The Edge

Aston Martin built an F1 car for the road and it’s amazing

Countering Bugatti’s breathtaking power with extreme lightness

• By Vlad Savov
• on July Five, two thousand sixteen 11:42 am
• @vladsavov

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If you thought Aston Martin was a manufacturer of sensational cars, wait until you get an eyeful of its latest.

I have just emerged from the cavernous Aston Martin factory where a throng of company employees got their own very first look at the British marque’s extreme fresh car, codenamed the Nebula and now known as the AM-RB 001. It’s a measure of the secrecy surrounding this hypercar that most of the people slated to work on producing it didn’t even know what it will look like. Today, the AM-RB one — a 2nd codename packing the void until a final official name is announced — got its grand unveiling and served to signal the direction of Aston Martin’s future design as well as a clear and direct challenge to the very best Ferrari, Bugatti, and McLaren have to suggest.

So what makes it a hypercar? Maybe the better question to ask is, who makes it a hypercar. Crimson Bull Racing’s Adrian Newey, legendary Formula one engineer and designer, has turned his forearm to roadgoing cars with the 001, and the result is a fairly unique fresh creation. The design purpose was to “keep it unspoiled and elementary and light, a tighter package” than the competition. In numerical terms, that means a target weight of 1,000kg and a power-to-weight ratio that would match this with 1,000hp. Visually, it makes for an arresting look, as the side skirts present on other hypercars vanish into nothing on the 001, which looks very much like a Formula one car from the underside.

Aston Martin CEO Andy Palmer admits that his company’s fresh hypercar can be interpreted as essentially a covered-up F1 racer, but he insists that “fundamentally, it’s a very, very quick road car.” There’ll be air conditioning, an infotainment system, and two seats inwards — with enough room to fit Aston’s chief designer Marek Reichman, who is six feet four inches tall, with a helmet on and Palmer sitting in the passenger seat. That’s achieved at a height of just 39.Five inches, which is lower than even the Ford GT40.

It’s the combination of a supremely streamlined and lightweight design with a powerful V12 engine that will make Aston Martin’s upcoming car special. It’s naturally aspirated, no turbos or hybrid power here, but Newey says the magic will be in the efficiency they can obtain from a considered design in which “the very first thing is the layout.” Every little detail has been optimized, right down to weighing and minimizing the amount of epoxy used to assemble the car. Water pipes are kept to minimal length and the single harass is mounted high at the rear.

Weight is further diminished by substituting the door treats with touch activation of the gullwing doors. Wing mirrors would obviously be too normal for the 001, so Aston Martin’s using rear-facing cameras instead, which are neatly disguised into the prominent front wheel arches. The entire thing is, of course, made out of carbon fiber, which can be painted in whatever color the hyper-wealthy customer desires.

Aston Martin says that the car unveiled today is essentially the final production vehicle design, barring minor nips, tucks, and adjustments to meet homologation requirements. If the headlights look weird, that’s because they’re covered up to protect Aston Martin’s unique LED cluster. We also weren’t permitted to photograph the bottom of the car too closely because Aston is keen to protect the particular details of its aerodynamic design.

The one leaves me feeling a little conflicted. I believe hybrid and electrical supercars are the future we should all be moving toward, which is a trend that Aston Martin is boldly shrugging off by sticking to a classic internal combustion engine. But at the same time, this fresh hypercar isn’t like the Bugatti Chiron, which throws everything brief of a jet engine into the task of going as quick as possible on four wheels. Aston Martin’s treatment is to lighten the flow, to make the car lighter to stir around rather than overwhelmingly powerful. I admire that preference for efficiency and I think it results in a prettier, more refined design.

Production of the AM-RB one is planned to be limited to ninety nine road cars, with a puny extra batch of a track-oriented version. At most, including testing prototypes, there will never be more than one hundred fifty of this car manufactured. So exclusivity is ensured even before you hear the price. How much does all this advanced design and technology cost then? Somewhere inbetween £2 million and £3 million ($Two.65m to $4m), depending on the options selected, which include a training course to educate drivers who are fresh to this class of automobile. The very first prototype AM-RB 001s will begin testing in late two thousand seventeen and the very first deliveries to customers will go after in early 2019.

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