Aston Martin Valkyrie's 1,000-hp V12 revs forever, weighs almost nothing
It sounds precisely as mean as its specifications look on paper.
There's bonkers, and then there's the Aston Martin Valkyrie. More race car than road car, the Valkyrie is certain to smash a whole bunch of records, or die trying, when it finally hits production. While that might be a ways off still, the automaker just dished a bunch of details about its engine, which is just as wild as the rest of the car.
Our colleagues at Carfection went to Cosworth's engine facility in person to get a look at the engine, which you can see in the video below. But if you're more of the text-based type, let's break it down. The Valkyrie's 6.5-liter V12 is set to produce 1,000 horsepower at a stratospheric 10,500 rpm, and the mill will keep spinning until its 11,100-rpm redline. That's 2,000 rpm higher than the Ferrari 812 Superfast can muster.
To ensure the cams and other powertrain parts stay in sync, Cosworth used gears instead of chains to transfer motion from the crankshaft to the cylinder head, which is how it's done in racing. The gears are pretty darn noisy, though, so Cosworth had to move them to the back of the engine, adding a little bit of complexity but saving the car's occupants from some serious clamor.
While noise is expected, the unique nature of the engine required some extra steps to prevent too much cabin harshness. Like some race cars, the Valkyrie's engine is a full-on structural component, responsible for transferring forces to and fro. As Cosworth's managing director told Carfection, there's essentially no connection between each half of the car with the engine removed. And given the tight confines of the engine bay, some interesting engineering was required -- the camshaft covers, for example, also double as chassis mounts.
Yet despite all these concessions, Cosworth barely missed its lofty target for engine weight. The firm set a goal of 200 kilograms, which it admitted was a little pie-in-the-sky, but the final product only ended up a couple kilos over that goal. Development started with a three-cylinder engine, essentially acting as a quarter of the Valkyrie's V12, and Cosworth only started work on the whole thing after building that I3 to meet Cosworth's goals for emissions and power output.
And that's just the engine itself -- it will eventually mate to a hybrid system, the details of which are still TBA. The Valkyrie will certainly become one of the wildest vehicles to ever grace roads, and we can't wait to find out more.
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