They’ve had Vantage, Vanquish, Virage, Valkyrie, Valhalla, Vulcan and Victor, so now please welcome the Aston Martin Valour, a 110-off, million and a bit quid supercar who’s chief claim to fame is being the only front-engined V12 car on sale with a manual gearbox.
Visually it’s a tribute the famed Aston DBS that raced at Le Mans in 1977 and ’79, becoming known as ‘The Muncher’ due to its capacity for chewing through its front brakes.
But it seems likely that the car to which it most owes its existence is the one-off Victor, created around a surplus One-77 chassis in 2021 and also styled to be reminiscent of The Muncher. All those who drove the Victor raved about not just its blinding speed, but also the intensity of the driving experience provided by its mighty V12 engine combined with a three-pedal transmission. Would this car exist had the reception to the Victor not been so rapturous? It seems unlikely.
But despite their V12 engines and homages paid to The Muncher, the Victor and Valour are very different. For while the Victor used a carbon tub and 7.3-litre naturally aspirated engine, the Valour uses the same structure as all Aston’s front-engined GTs, and comes with the 715bhp 5.2-litre, twin-turbo V12 found in the DBS. But don’t be disappointed: the Valour will cost between £1-1.5 million, a trifle compared to the £4 million rumoured to have been charged to the Victor’s owner.
The Valour has been conceived as a 110th birthday present for the company and, to use its own words, can be seen as ‘an old-school brute refined and reimagined through the lens of 2023’. It also claims to be ‘the last of an era’ without going on to elaborate as to which era it is referring. But clearly the philosophy has been to combine retro-modern design with up to date engineering to achieve a hopefully unique driving experience.
To this end Aston Martin has made the body entirely from carbon fibre and placed it upon a chassis with bespoke suspension to make the car as dynamic in feel as possible. It also has what is described as a ‘new steering system’ to remove ‘unwanted sources of compliance’ which I’m guessing is the rigidly mounted rack from the DBS 770 Ultimate. But if you like what you see I’m afraid you’re already too late: the car sold out before it was ever officially announced.
