New Aston Martin hypercar ‘003’ announced

Aston Martin’s next hypercar is on the way, known officially to the public as ‘003’.

With a turbocharged mid-mounted petrol-electric hybrid engine, the car is limited to a production run of just 500 units.

A report by UK outlet AutoCar says the car is known within Aston circles and the development team as the ‘Son of Valkyrie’, as it follows on from the Valkyrie and Valkyrie AMR Pro, which were previously known as ‘001’ and ‘002’.

This is likely the car MOTOR was told about by Aston’s chief designer Marek Reichman when he spilled a few beans on the topic of upcoming models.

“The vision and the jigsaw puzzle, when you fit it all together, there’s a reason we entered into F1 originally, there’s a reason we now have title sponsorship,” he told us in March this year.

“Valkyrie sits as a very important part of that, the track-going Valkyrie, all of that lineage feeds down into the road-going car.”

“What I can tell you is that, in terms of its performance capability it will be a true competitor to the market set at the time – whatever the 488 is, whatever the McLaren 720S is, wherever Lamborghini is.”

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The British brand has put together somewhat of a ‘dream team’ for creating mid-engined sports cars, with Ferrari’s former head of innovation Max Szwaj, and former engine boss Joerg Ross defecting to Aston.

Dynamics veteran Simone Rizzuto (nabbed from Maserati, previously Alfa Romeo), head engineer Matt Becker (formerly of Lotus), and former McLaren test driver Chris Goodwin also relatively recently joined the Aston Martin ranks.

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Aston Martin says the goals for ‘003’ are for it to be a lightweight road-legal car, with “active aerodynamics for outstanding levels of downforce” and an active suspension system.

It’s to be available “in all markets in both left and right-hand drive,” and has been envisioned with practicality in mind – this car will have useable luggage space.

Aston Martin CEO Andy Palmer says while the Valkyrie was a ‘once-in-a lifetime’ project, he hopes its success trickles into the follow up ‘Son of Valkyrie’ being developed.

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“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.”

Aston Martin says the car will arrive to the market in late 2021, so we’re not holding our breath to see it in the ‘metal’ any time soon.