Aston Martin‘s Valkyrie hypercar is “first and foremost […] a marketing tool,” the company’s CEO Andy Palmer said in a recent interview, meant to stir up a market for a forthcoming volume-production mid-engined supercar.
“It won’t lose money, but it was never designed to be a big money generator, because we are only making 150 of them,” Palmer told Automotive News Europe. “That is the role of the mid-engine Ferrari 488 competitor. You can view the Valkyrie as advance marketing spend.”
It’s not uncommon for limited-production flagships or halo cars, as expensive as they are, to actually cost an automaker more than they make on them, simply because the engineering costs are so high and the sales volumes so low.
The British brand has a long, proud history of building race cars and sports cars, but had never built a mid-engine vehicle prior to Valkyrie; before bringing a Lamborghini-, McLaren- and Ferrari-fighting supercar to customers, it decided to construct the limited-run hypercar as a sort of proof-of-concept.
The first deliveries of the long-awaited Valkyrie – all 150 of which have been spoken for – begin next year, with this unnamed volume mid-engined car set to debut the year after.
Little is known about the mid-engined supercar, though Palmer has said none of his brand’s current engines make enough power for the mystery model, and that Aston Martin may reach out to partner AMG or another similar automaker to supply it a drivetrain for the car. He’d previously said the engine would be a V6, which, being smaller, would offer better packaging options.
Aston Martin also has a DBX SUV in the works, and is launching a Lagonda autonomous luxury sub-brand with an SUV and sedan set to come out 2021.