Valkryie rumours - worrying if true
Discussion
As I understand it it's a joint development between AM and Red Bull. Yes the Red Bull that sponsors F1 cars, that have AM sponsorship on. But won't have AM sponsorship next year as Stroll wants AM branding on his team. It's late to market, was designed by a fabulous F1 engineer who has never designed a road car. It's all about the downforce and sucking the car to the road surface. Fine on a smooth track but not sure how that works on typical British roads (insert other countries with s
t roads). Has anyone heard it changing gear at max revs? Every video I've seen / heard it short shifts. I've read rumours of the gearbox struggling to handle all the power.
I did see a quote from AP saying he expected to break even / make a loss on each one (can't find the quote online now). If that's true along with still having development issues and then add into the mix of the branding 'confusion' Red Bull / Aston Martin, then it wouldn't surprise me if they have to change focus on the development.
t roads). Has anyone heard it changing gear at max revs? Every video I've seen / heard it short shifts. I've read rumours of the gearbox struggling to handle all the power.I did see a quote from AP saying he expected to break even / make a loss on each one (can't find the quote online now). If that's true along with still having development issues and then add into the mix of the branding 'confusion' Red Bull / Aston Martin, then it wouldn't surprise me if they have to change focus on the development.
Ref. the AP quote. Yes. I too remember the 'may not be profitable' aspect, but what did make sense, was that it would be the first of a series of mid-engine cars. The Valkryie being so extreme, would be able to showcase to future mid-engine buyers, the engineering capabilities of AML, in what for them is a new layout.
The McLaren F1 worked as a road car, so hopefully we will see the exciting Valkryie in production.
Mr. Stroll keeps talking about the mid-engine Aston Martins, and bringing F1 expertise to AML..
Aston should neve have got involved in the Valkyrie if you ask me.
Valkyrie is great, but Aston Martin is all about cars that look like Astons. People don't look to the Aston brand for class leading performance. Its about the look and feel of the cars.
Wiser to stick to future versions of the One 77.
Valkyrie is great, but Aston Martin is all about cars that look like Astons. People don't look to the Aston brand for class leading performance. Its about the look and feel of the cars.
Wiser to stick to future versions of the One 77.
hyphen said:
Aston should neve have got involved in the Valkyrie if you ask me.
Valkyrie is great, but Aston Martin is all about cars that look like Astons. People don't look to the Aston brand for class leading performance. Its about the look and feel of the cars.
Wiser to stick to future versions of the One 77.
That is so true.Valkyrie is great, but Aston Martin is all about cars that look like Astons. People don't look to the Aston brand for class leading performance. Its about the look and feel of the cars.
Wiser to stick to future versions of the One 77.
The Valkyrie made an appearance (I believe) at the Passiona Engadin event here in St. Moritz at the weekend along with the Aston Martin CALLUM Vanquish 25 by R-Reforged and quite a few very special Astons.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CEJmtzxhTG3/
Aston Martin St. Gallen who are linked to both AF Racing and R-Reforged were a key sponsor of the event. They brought a very new and shiny Valkerie mobile service unit and I believe it was in that. Access was by invite only.
Dr. Andreas Baenziger who I believe owns / is a major shareholder of all three businesses. You can read about his involvement in Valkyrie here:
http://www.dailysportscar.com/2018/05/29/r-motorsp...
https://www.instagram.com/p/CEJmtzxhTG3/
Aston Martin St. Gallen who are linked to both AF Racing and R-Reforged were a key sponsor of the event. They brought a very new and shiny Valkerie mobile service unit and I believe it was in that. Access was by invite only.
Dr. Andreas Baenziger who I believe owns / is a major shareholder of all three businesses. You can read about his involvement in Valkyrie here:
http://www.dailysportscar.com/2018/05/29/r-motorsp...
chandrew said:
Dr. Andreas Baenziger who I believe owns / is a major shareholder of all three businesses. You can read about his involvement in Valkyrie here:
http://www.dailysportscar.com/2018/05/29/r-motorsp...
http://www.dailysportscar.com/2018/05/29/r-motorsp...
Thank you for posting that link.
Very interesting background story.
Wonder if there has been anything subsequent to that interview?
Contrary to the rumours, according to Matt Becker, the car's quite easy to drive, it's just pretty quick compared to the majority of cars out there. Recently he got involved in dynamic testing of the car at Silverstone, along with introducing the new CEO to the car. What's rarely talked about is how cars are tested to destruction - the fact that Aston's a bit more transparent in its road testing and R&D is probably counter intuitive, because it merely breeds articles like in the above link which seek to make the project appear to be in a poor state of health. Cars are tested to breaking point to iron out bugs and ensure the finished article is durable enough. The fact is that at the sharp end of car development, these cutting edge cars are a step into the unknown, and you don't learn about what works until the car's experienced some real world testing.
Maranello probably blew up a lot of engines and gearboxes before it got to an SF90 Stradale it could sell to the public, but did so quite secretly, and production of said car is now being severely hampered due to Covid and the knock-on effect on suppliers, yet nobody screams about that from the rooftops. It's a great shame that some car makers every bowel movement is under close scrutiny, and others are afforded much less intrusive critique.
In terms of Valkyrie itself - it's still the best part of a year ahead of the Project One (unless AMG want to shortcut track and road development and just start selling it as it is, because it only started testing a few weeks ago), and that car with its so called state-of-the-art F1 engine, is nearly a 5 year old engine (quite ancient in F1 terms), the USP and novelty's starting to wear off IMO, along with it sounding like a muffled version of the F1 car it came from, which isn't what I'd call praise - it isn't going to fair well in the sound experience stakes against Valkyrie.
Much is made of the early video footage of Valkyrie gear changes being like older automated manuals. Ricardo and the Aston's development and calibration teams will have it working no problem before it's given to a motoring journalist. The trouble is that early development behind the scenes views often show a 'warts and all' picture, when it's nowhere near being a finished product.
Sometimes, it's better to be absolute radio silent and just unveil a monster car on the world, because the nay sayers would have a much harder time picking it apart. In any case, Valkyrie -> Valhalla -> Vanquish - still happening, still brilliant
Maranello probably blew up a lot of engines and gearboxes before it got to an SF90 Stradale it could sell to the public, but did so quite secretly, and production of said car is now being severely hampered due to Covid and the knock-on effect on suppliers, yet nobody screams about that from the rooftops. It's a great shame that some car makers every bowel movement is under close scrutiny, and others are afforded much less intrusive critique.
In terms of Valkyrie itself - it's still the best part of a year ahead of the Project One (unless AMG want to shortcut track and road development and just start selling it as it is, because it only started testing a few weeks ago), and that car with its so called state-of-the-art F1 engine, is nearly a 5 year old engine (quite ancient in F1 terms), the USP and novelty's starting to wear off IMO, along with it sounding like a muffled version of the F1 car it came from, which isn't what I'd call praise - it isn't going to fair well in the sound experience stakes against Valkyrie.
Much is made of the early video footage of Valkyrie gear changes being like older automated manuals. Ricardo and the Aston's development and calibration teams will have it working no problem before it's given to a motoring journalist. The trouble is that early development behind the scenes views often show a 'warts and all' picture, when it's nowhere near being a finished product.
Sometimes, it's better to be absolute radio silent and just unveil a monster car on the world, because the nay sayers would have a much harder time picking it apart. In any case, Valkyrie -> Valhalla -> Vanquish - still happening, still brilliant
Thank you for your clarification, Jon.
It must be upsetting when the development team see a sequence of uninformed public articles, but not responding is probably their best tactic. Expect it might result in questions, from some of the eager buyers though.
I am puzzled by the Mercedes approach using a detuned F1 engine. Normally a formula one engine first needs the oil and internal components to be pre-heated, then a team of people to be on hand, even before the engine can be started. Quite awkward perhaps after a spot of Harrods shopping.
Then with a race engine, you probably cannot expect too many miles before having a rebuilt. Obviously they will have dealt with these inbuilt complications, but that seems to be unneccessary backwards reconfiguration work. With the AML Cosworth approach, the initial starting point was to create a powerful, but still practical road car engine. Jon39 said:
Thank you for your clarification, Jon.
It must be upsetting when the development team see a sequence of uninformed public articles, but not responding is probably their best tactic. Expect it might result in questions, from some of the eager buyers though.
I am puzzled by the Mercedes approach using a detuned F1 engine. Normally a formula one engine first needs the oil and internal components to be pre-heated, then a team of people to be on hand, even before the engine can be started. Quite awkward perhaps after a spot of Harrods shopping.
Then with a race engine, you probably cannot expect too many miles before having a rebuilt. Obviously they will have dealt with these inbuilt complications, but that seems to be unneccessary backwards reconfiguration work. With the AML Cosworth approach, the initial starting point was to create a powerful, but still practical road car engine.Re-purposing the engine to make it suitable for a road car, required dumping the pneumatic valve train, and toning everything down to make it capable of the 'mundane' road car tasks of cold starts, hot starts, sitting in traffic, having good low speed tractability. It's said to still rev to 11,000rpm (down from 15,000 with the pneumatic valve train). In the F1 application, it never revved that high anyway due to fuel flow limits.
I understand it was the idle speed that caused the emissions headaches - in simple terms, less revs equals less Co2 being spewed out - To get down to 1200rpm vs 5000rpm in the F1 car took some work (and caused a 9 month delay IIRC).
I'm sure once it's finished, it'll be a weapon of a car and have a lot of F1 derived technology on it, but IMO it's simply not got the purity of the Valkyrie. The engine's quite compromised over what it was intended for, whereas the Valkyrie V12 was designed for that very application, and is the best it can possibly be.
NFC 85 Vette said:
The AMG One (new name for the Project One) is something of an oddity - to my mind it appears to be taking the most complicated route to answer the question of "what's the ultimate hypercar". F1 engines aren't designed to pass emissions tests (hence why it took a long time for AMG to get it compliant), the service life as you alluded to, is very short. Back in 2016 those F1 engines were used up after about 2000 miles (7 race weekends). AMG say it'll go 31,000 miles before needing 'work' i.e. some sort of rebuild. That's pretty good going all things considered.
Re-purposing the engine to make it suitable for a road car, required dumping the pneumatic valve train, and toning everything down to make it capable of the 'mundane' road car tasks of cold starts, hot starts, sitting in traffic, having good low speed tractability. It's said to still rev to 11,000rpm (down from 15,000 with the pneumatic valve train). In the F1 application, it never revved that high anyway due to fuel flow limits.
I understand it was the idle speed that caused the emissions headaches - in simple terms, less revs equals less Co2 being spewed out - To get down to 1200rpm vs 5000rpm in the F1 car took some work (and caused a 9 month delay IIRC).
I'm sure once it's finished, it'll be a weapon of a car and have a lot of F1 derived technology on it, but IMO it's simply not got the purity of the Valkyrie. The engine's quite compromised over what it was intended for, whereas the Valkyrie V12 was designed for that very application, and is the best it can possibly be.
And meanwhile Gordon Murray took everyone by surprise and scored.Re-purposing the engine to make it suitable for a road car, required dumping the pneumatic valve train, and toning everything down to make it capable of the 'mundane' road car tasks of cold starts, hot starts, sitting in traffic, having good low speed tractability. It's said to still rev to 11,000rpm (down from 15,000 with the pneumatic valve train). In the F1 application, it never revved that high anyway due to fuel flow limits.
I understand it was the idle speed that caused the emissions headaches - in simple terms, less revs equals less Co2 being spewed out - To get down to 1200rpm vs 5000rpm in the F1 car took some work (and caused a 9 month delay IIRC).
I'm sure once it's finished, it'll be a weapon of a car and have a lot of F1 derived technology on it, but IMO it's simply not got the purity of the Valkyrie. The engine's quite compromised over what it was intended for, whereas the Valkyrie V12 was designed for that very application, and is the best it can possibly be.
hyphen said:
Scored what? The AMG One is a more complex car with more complex tech.
Also remember the T.50 still had parts missing off its body when unveiled (e.g.mirrors) and is yet to be fitted with an engine.
You are right, but from what I can tell now, the T.50 sounds more of a car that you can actually use, while being incredibly advanced and probably the pinnacle of ICE. The AMG One is a bit more of an exercise in extreme-ty to me.Also remember the T.50 still had parts missing off its body when unveiled (e.g.mirrors) and is yet to be fitted with an engine.
Jon39 said:
Gordon Murray expressed his views on various recent car developments. He gave a warning about carbon fibre road wheels.
An impact with an alloy usually causes chips, whereas a carbon fibre wheel can sometimes shatter when damaged.
Is that true?
I've cracked alloy wheels. There are many ways to destroy things.
What I would say is - look at who is using carbon fibre wheels - they are reputable tier one manufacturers such as Ford, VW Group. If these wheels were a death trap then they would not use them.
With regard to the wheels getting scuffed. Well, just park better! ;-)
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