Aston Martin has started teasing an all-new hypercar they plan to unveil soon, possibly at the upcoming Geneva Motor Show in March. From the little we have to go on, this new model, called the Project 003 at this stage, will be a very low mid-engine machine styled in much the same way as the Valkyrie.
The British automaker is quick to point out that the ‘003’ codename was chosen because they consider it to be their third hypercar creation, following the Valkyrie and Valkyrie AMR Pro. Although in our minds it should really be called the 002 since the AMR Pro is an extension of the original Valkyrie road car, this 003 should be a slightly more accessible affair once it reaches its final form.
For one thing, the 003 will lack the cramped driver-focused cockpit but instead feature at least two seats and is due to be fully homologated for both right and left-hand drive markets. Despite sharing similar aesthetics and aerodynamic qualities, the car will also be developed for regular road use, even going so far as having a semi-usable boot, so they say.
They only plan to build 500 examples with help from Red Bull Advanced Technologies. The project must already be decently far along as the company has earmarked late 2021 as its on-market arrival date. Given their fondness of the letter V and norse mythology in name selection, could this be new model be called the Valhalla?
Regardless of its moniker, Aston Martin did have to make some concessions with the Project 003 to not overshadow the Valkyrie. Thusly, instead of the bespoke Cosworth naturally aspirated V12 used there, this new car will use a smaller turbocharged petrol engine, possibly the 5.2-litre unit from the DB11, augmented with an advanced hybrid drivetrain.
Power and torque should still be pretty mega and Aston Martin does intend to endow it with ludicrous levels of active aerodynamics to deliver unseemly amounts of downforce for a road legal car.
Aston Martin Lagonda President and Group Chief Executive, Andy Palmer, said: “It was always the intention for the Aston Martin Valkyrie to be a once-in-a lifetime project, however, it was also vital to us that Valkyrie would create a legacy: a direct descendent that would also set new standards within its own area of the hypercar market, creating a bloodline of highly specialised, limited production machines that can exist in parallel with Aston Martin’s series production models. I’m thrilled to announce that this car is the Project ‘003’, and our next step into a dynamic and exacting arena.”
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