2026 Aston Martin Valhalla | PH Review
Over 1,000hp, nearly £1m... and a cinch to drive every day. No mistake, the new Valhalla is a special, special thing
- Aston Martin's long-promised mid-engined supercar is finally here
- Lengthy development of Aston's first-ever PHEV concluded last year
- Goodwood Festival of Speed hosted the dynamic debut in June...
- ...we drove the prototype at Silverstone in August; now comes the real thing
To drive one of the most thrilling cars of 2026 before the clocks have even gone forward is quite an extraordinary feeling. But the Aston Martin Valhalla is quite an extraordinary car. You can conclude as much from its spec sheet. Totals of 1,079hp and 811lb ft of torque rarely provoke ambivalence. So too a 2.5-second sprint from 0 to 62mph and a 217mph top speed. Crucially, these aren’t delivered instantly by the silent assassin that is pure electricity – they’re the combined work of petrol and battery power, with a huge emphasis on the former. While their delivery is shared across two axles, the rearmost one puts in the biggest shift.
Its heart is a flat-plane, mid-mounted 4.0-litre V8 with in-vee turbos closely related to the unit found in the old Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series. Alone, it produces 828hp and 632lb ft, peaks delivered together at 6,700rpm just 300 revs shy of the limiter. Complementing its output are three e-motors – one integrated into the eight-speed dual-clutch gearbox at the rear, and two on the front axle with torque vectoring functionality under power and during regen, helping the car track true under hard braking.
It’s the first Aston Martin with a twin-clutch ‘box and it’s the brand’s first plug-in hybrid, though the hypothetical eight-mile range of its 6.1kWh battery is clearly a formality. It’s the chance to pull subtly away from home during early morning starts rather than something to genuinely lean on during the morning commute. If Valhalla owners ever have to suffer such a thing…
The car defaults to Sport mode upon start-up, in fact, with pure EV toggled via the tactile dial in the middle of the cockpit. Sport+ and Race sit above, altering the steering, damping and throttle as you go, Race being the only condition under which its rear wing fully scaffolds up to track-attack mode. It complements an active aero spoiler at the front for DRS, airbrake and downforce functions, the latter totalling 610kg (over a third of the Valhalla’s 1,655kg dry weight) from 149mph all the way to its Vmax.
John Howell has already written chapter and verse on his affection for a nearly finished prototype, and it’s a delight to report that little has changed to dampen his enthusiasm. If anything, the chance to drive the Valhalla on road only dings its score higher on the PHometer.
With a progressive throttle and responsive brakes, it’s easy to show restraint and keep it burbling away below urban speed limits. The proof arrives swiftly; within moments of leaving the gates Circuito de Navarra in northern Spain, I’m subtly tailed by a Policia-emblazoned Kuga. For mile after mile, the Ford sits uncomfortably close to my bumper – perhaps a trick of the rear-view camera, an otherwise very useful addition to the cabin in lieu of a back window – before the stern face behind its wheel overtakes at the first rural speed limit and promptly summons me into the next layby for nothing more than a cursory walk around.
Perhaps the sight of number plates on something so otherworldly gave him a thirst to know what I’m up to. Just a shame it didn’t occur closer to the end of my road loop, when I could have informed them what an absolute cinch the Valhalla is to drive among the Aronas and Jukes of this world.
The pre-drive presentation promised as much. Phrases like “breathing with the road,” “enjoyable steering feel every day” and “a little bit of roll” all set the scene for an experience a world away from the noise-cancelling headphones required to slot a Valkyrie through traffic.
Its inboard pushrods, oblong steering wheel and Le Mans-like driving position provide the blockbuster visuals and sensations you surely want from your £850,000-plus purchase – and they also conspire to open up broad visibility up front. It should be more trepidatious than this to potter around in a Valhalla. Its steering is supremely quick-witted yet avoids feeling nervous or hyperactive, helping your confidence build quickly. More vigorous inputs reveal the frenzied possibilities beneath, but you’re unlikely to find the car spiky without deliberate provocation. The damping is absurdly good across the board, and you simply don’t wince when ruts and bumps hove into view.
While it’s AWD, a minority of power is fed through the front two motors and their torque vectoring acts with just enough authority to keep the car under precise control without dimming its flame. Same goes for the stability systems, which are so light of touch that you have no desire to start loosening their grasp on public roads. With a turbocharged V8 rather than an atmospheric Cosworth V12, the Valhalla simply doesn’t have the soundtrack of its bigger brother (whose ethos it borrows), and you happily row it along with lower revs and higher gears, feeling the boost build and playing tunes with the other elements of its powertrain.
Refinement is better than you probably dare hope. The hubbub of road noise and the ping of gravel in its ‘arches offer no illusion that you're in anything other than a carbon-tubbed supercar. The engine can tick along at around 2,000rpm at a cruise, but it’s tricky to truly engage with music or podcasts at high speed. Nevertheless, the incongruity of how well it otherwise tackles daily driving makes the prospect of a longer adventure highly thrilling. It’s thus a shame the project’s wider focus hasn’t permitted any boot space, limiting luggage capacity to a few slim pockets and cubbies. Owners will likely find alternative methods to get their belongings to the destination ahead…
Practicality aside, its interior impresses. Despite its oddly shaped ‘wheel, everything is easy to fathom; its screen sizes are subtle (though if I were feeling crueller, its digital instruments don’t spark enough joy for a circa-£1m flagship) and everything is legible and logical. It shuns a high-fashion passenger display in favour of some fairly convincing WEC Hypercar cosplay, even if you still get Apple CarPlay as standard on the touchscreen. Its Mercedes wiper stalk stands out as a parts-bin grab, but hey – it works properly. No real complaints here.
Back in the confines of Navarra, rain tipping down, it’s time to head out on track. Needless to say, this won’t be ultimate performance testing (nor teasing) the car right at its limit. Instead, it’s an even more impressive vignette of how purposeful it remains outside of its apparent comfort zone. Aston’s had the good grace of fitting its friendlier tyre option (a Michelin Pilot Sport 5 S rather than a Cup 2, both compounds bespoke to the Valhalla), and sure enough the car puts down its prodigious power with only a light flicker of the traction light to expose any difficulty in doing so. Again, it’s done with a gentle enough, McLaren-esque touch to avoid making its driver feel overly coddled.
The engine revs very quickly indeed and you need to keep one eye on the instrument display in your early laps to avoid slamming slap-bang into the limiter. You must notify your finger ends to pull the right-hand paddle as the needle passes six in order to shift by seven, at which point the changes hit home with serious gratification. It’s not as fabulous as a Ferrari DCT, perhaps, but it still nails the brief. And it is Aston’s first go.
Perhaps the Valhalla’s most impressive facet is that it allows your brain to keep pace with it all. I’m soon flicking from Sport+ to Race to loosen its ESP and go hunting its aero effects. A shimmy out of bends and the fun, flicked-wrist collection of a slide is all possible without turning everything off and the car feels precise and focused as a default – betraying its AWD setup – yet asks of pleasingly little to wake up its innate balance, a gently trailed brake giving you a neat sense of the rear pivoting around without any lost momentum on corner exit.
Remarkably, it doesn’t require hypersonic pace or an irresponsible attitude to foreground its character. Its brakes astonish as much as anything, with deep, progressive feel from the pedal despite the carbon ceramics operating at cold temperatures and its complex regenerative abilities built into even an ABS stop. Much like Howell found at Stowe last year, I know I’m not braking nearly as late as this car can, but there’s no sense of FOMO. It meets you at your level rather than dragging you unwillingly up to its. Warmer, drier tarmac would surely make confidence soar and lap times tumble – a trustworthy platform at your hands and feet – but I still get an unerring sense of pushing harder with each lap in the unseasonably sodden conditions. I reluctantly return to the pits hoping that a Valhalla on a sunnier circuit presents itself somewhere in my future.
First revealed as the AM-RB 003 back in 2019 (and with V6 power), the Valhalla has been through a prolonged gestation period and witnessed nearly as many Aston CEOs as British Prime Ministers. But it’s evidently a car whose details have been pored over, one claiming numerous showstopping tech pieces yet whose driving experience still feels like a cohesive whole. Lotus and McLaren feature heavily on the CVs of the chassis folks, a fact that bubbles right at the surface of its handling. The Valhalla feels like the product of a modestly sized, finely focused team.
It also arrives at an intriguing time for Aston Martin. Days before we got behind the wheel in Spain, money-saving job cuts were confirmed. Its F1 team currently trails newcomer Cadillac at the bottom of the constructors’ standings. A good news story is more welcome than ever, and its self-proclaimed ‘Son of Valkyrie’ feels like precisely that. If I drive anything more memorable than the Valhalla before Christmas, then 2026 (in car terms, if nothing else) has been a very good year indeed.
SPECIFICATION | 2026 ASTON MARTIN VALHALLA
Engine: 3,982cc V8, twin-turbo, plus three axial-flux motors
Transmission: 8-speed dual-clutch auto, all-wheel drive
Power (hp): 828 @ 6,700rpm (1,079hp total)
Torque (lb ft): 632 @ 6,700rpm (811 total)
0-62mph: 2.5 seconds
Top speed: 217mph
Weight: 1,655kg (dry)
CO2: 275g/km
MPG: 20.3
Price: £850,000-plus
PH Verdict: Aston Martin has outdone itself; wonderful, wonderful, wonderful
. Lovely car.Looked suitably supercar like
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbZ9iYWReZA
Whilst over 1,000 bhp is incredible it’s also not that far beyond a 296 or Artura in power, or technology, which start to look like a bargain by comparison.
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