Aston Martin Valhalla: has the 1064bhp hypercar been worth the wait? | The evo podcast | Episode 26

It's a bit like weighing yourself without blood, isn't it?

Yeah.

I've not tried that yet.

Well, hello and welcome to the Evo Podcast episode 26,

Armilla I've been informed.

I don't believe them, but I've been away,

so I trusted James on that one.

So welcome, Dicky James Youssef.

Hello.

We are recording this in our lovely un-air-conditioned office.

A little message there for our CEO, Joey V.

We've been like an air-conditioning unit, please.

So if you're watching this on YouTube,

I apologize for the four rather sweaty faces.

What's been up to?

What's been happening since I was being away and left you to stuff?

We've all been diligently working a waste

to getting a copy of the time.

I've just got the email from Eves.

Where the copy is?

Yeah, Eves back on holiday.

Well, one thing that struck me while I was away

and not looking at my phone.

Someone set another record at the Nurburgring.

They did.

They had Corvette.

The Americans have taken over.

First, it was Mustang.

It was GTD.

Now it's that Corvette ZR1X, which has done a 649.275,

which is a mighty nearly two seconds quicker,

two and a bit seconds quicker than the Mustang.

Which is interesting, with the US,

these high performance cars, proper driver's cars coming over

to Europe and taking on the ring.

It's quite a big thing, isn't it?

They've been in a bit of a bubble for a while, haven't they?

A lot of their muscle cars pass us by.

I don't know the demons and hell cats

and all the super cool stuff that they do.

But I think that's the only time these things really

register on our radar, isn't it,

is when they come to the Nurburgring.

But they've really shaken things up, which is good.

They've rattled a few cages, haven't they,

I think, with those cars?

Yeah, but they've done it with 450 more horsepower

than a Mustang GTD, so there's some context there.

Yeah, they're quite the Mustangs and ZR1 or Corvettes

in name, aren't they?

They're quite special things.

But we sometimes have a bit of a downer on the ring,

don't we, of cars being developed and set up

just to do a lap time and what's the relevance to it.

But more and more, particularly now,

some of the cars that are doing the times.

You drove the Golf Club Sport 50th Esp thing,

whatever they've got the name wrong for it.

50th Edition, which is basically Club Sport S.

But that's going for a time and doing a time,

but it's also a really good car away from the ring,

like all the Porsches and the AMG Black series and stuff.

It still resonates, doesn't it?

And obviously it's gone way across the pond now.

I quite like the fact that the American stuff

still looks like they've turned up with the wrong car.

They're trying to get a square pegging around hole,

aren't they?

You see all the, look at the power thing,

massive power, but it's a massive car.

And you see how effective a 911 RS is or something.

But I love the fact that they're totally opposed

in philosophy and not in execution

because they're both done to a very high level,

aren't they?

But they've come from opposite ends

and they meet and achieve such a similar lap time.

I think you have to be excited about that stuff,

whether it's relevant or not,

it's almost either by, isn't it?

But time is just, I mean, we're old enough to remember

when cars like to drop below seven minutes.

Well, we did an eight minute heroes cover story

some years ago, didn't we?

Not heroes anymore.

Yeah, the fastest stuff that had ever been around there,

really, like R500, Katerham and XJ2.

It got some quite cool stuff, actually.

R32 Skyline, 33 Skyline and all those kinds of cars,

but everything is so, like a proper extreme road car now

is way more extreme than any race car was back then,

isn't it?

I think it's a different world.

It's interesting, isn't it?

None of the hypercars aren't,

no one ever asked for F80 you drove

a couple of weeks ago,

but there's no real clamber friend

who wants to say, well, how fast is it round the ring?

I think maybe it's such a specific challenge, isn't it?

That everything has to be so focused on that 12

and a bit miles, and it's a bit like the Wild West,

isn't it?

Like, you know, you're set a time

and you're a dear to all sorts of homologation regs

and this and that,

and then someone else will turn up

with a ridiculously tuned, non-homologated whatever,

but it grabs the headline as the time, isn't it?

The means by which it's been achieved

is almost secondary.

It's not like FIA homologated, sort of.

And I think that's why there's always been

such conversation around it, isn't it?

Because you never quite know what spec the cars in or...

That makes it fun sometimes.

Yeah, I think so.

It's still happening, though, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, how quick, yeah, I don't care, but how quick was it?

Yeah, was it on time or something?

It is just like the ultimate time attack now, isn't it?

I think is almost how the manufacturers are treating it,

but you know, or you certainly get the impression

that the Porsches maybe and a few of the others,

they're gonna build a thousand of those things,

aren't they?

And they're not a proper Skunk Works special,

but I quite like the fact that the GTD Mustang

has been done by their motor sport department.

And they've had a couple of goes at it now, haven't they?

Cause they're so determined to get the best time out of it.

And from speaking to people in the company,

part of the reason they wanted to concentrate

on the Nurburgring time was, you know,

it's seen in the outside world and in America

as being the backyard for Porsche, AMG, BMW,

so to go there and do that.

It's similar to when Nissan came over with the GTRs

and started to wind up the Europeans.

It sort of pushes everyone and it makes a great

sort of soap opera almost just to get some popcorn

and watch, doesn't it?

Otherwise it would be quite sanitized.

And there's the other car as well that the

the pro-drives built that is the electric car.

That you can't remember the name.

I can't remember the name.

Yellow, I think it was with a wing.

The other pronounce is Xiaomi, isn't it?

Xiaomi, I think.

I think that's it.

Which has done, but it did the time a couple of months

again, but they felt to sort of raise it again

that they've done it.

But it's interesting how it's still,

you sort of feel for the engineering that goes

into some of the EVs that are doing these amazing times,

but it's still something with a big block V8

or a very sort of traditional ice car

that is what gets the headlines and gets people talking.

I think the EV stuff's always been slightly odd,

hasn't it?

Like even from when the Neo EP9

or whatever it was called, the RML built for Neo,

did an extraordinary time,

but it didn't really lead to anything.

I know it was just to get the Neo name out there,

but then Lotus did it as well, didn't they?

But you could see it was a completely stripped out

evire, like nothing to do with what they're trying

to sell a struggling with.

So I think, yeah, I know we've just said it doesn't,

the Mustangs and Corvettes and GT3 RSs and stuff,

they don't necessarily need to be massively relevant,

but they sort of do, don't they?

They have to be rooted in some sort of reality, I think.

That's connected to an enthusiast that's gonna bind to it,

whether it's a regular Mustang or a regular C8

or an E-Ray or Z06, isn't it?

It's called that connection.

But the EV stuff, the engineering into it to do that.

I don't really know what point they're trying to,

no proof.

There's no one taking an EV on track these days.

I mean, where'd you charge it?

The last two laps before losing power most of them.

So it's...

I think perhaps as a way of them understanding

how to manage the energy in the battery

and where they find, where they can get some regen

and where they can't and how to deploy it,

all of that, it's obviously really interesting

and it will trickle down into other stuff, I'm sure.

But for now, it's such an obscure kind of exercise.

It's a laboratory exercise, isn't it?

With a bit of PR value to it, I think.

Probably more valuable to the battery and motor manufacturers

than Formula E ever will, but isn't it?

It's more relevant.

You've got cars that that stuff is gonna go into.

So you've got the mass and the footprint and stuff.

No, it's all good, isn't it?

Yeah, it's still, that place has still got that appeal,

hasn't it?

I think it's probably fueling all the massive crashes

in the tourist.

It's got some scary stuff recently, isn't it?

Yeah, that's very, very scary stuff.

I do fear that.

It feels like it's almost, I don't think

it would have to be a cataclysmically horrendous body

counting it for them to knock it on the head,

but if it happened anywhere else,

you can't imagine it would be allowed to continue,

can you, really?

I don't know.

I need to get out of there, I haven't driven it yet.

So before they close them all down.

In your virtue on McLaren M23, is it?

M23, yeah, what a weapon of choice.

Yeah, it might be slightly different.

We'll get you out there or something.

Maybe not an F1 car.

And also, haven't been away for a couple of weeks,

of course there's been another hypercar announced.

Another week.

Another week, another V12 manual rear wheel drive

hypercar, the Garagista GP1.

Yeah, I like the sound of this actually,

because it's not the usual kind of,

again, phone cosworth, how many revs do you want,

how many cylinders do you want, kind of.

I know they're going to outside suppliers

for the key parts of the car,

but it's still quite an intoxicating recipe, isn't it?

I think, and a bit of mystery around it.

But with credibility that underpins the engine supplier

and few of the other.

Yeah, so it's carbon topped, isn't it,

from a, a lot of it's coming out of Italy,

but they're calling it a British.

Okay.

British name coming back.

Yeah, it was kind of a.

It's what Ferrari called all the small British race team.

Yeah, it's almost full on Cooper and Lotus

and all those.

Bit of guy in cheek.

Yeah, yeah.

Do you know who's behind this?

It's an MC12 based engine, isn't it, from the.

Yeah, so it's a 6.6 V12 in this.

That's a bit bigger than it was in the MC.

Yeah, 800 horsepower, isn't it?

So it's a bit more power than what an MC12 had.

It looks quite cool thing, in terms of looks.

There's bits of, I don't know,

I was looking at some of the images from the rear

and stuff, it looks a bit reviotto.

Yeah, there's certain, I think it's always the same,

isn't it, there's certain inspirations from other.

Yeah.

From other cars.

The designer is X Bugatti and a few other people,

isn't it, so.

Remats, so.

Yeah, it looks a cool thing,

but it's only renders at the moment, isn't it?

25 cars, 2.45 million pound.

I think it's a serious.

I think there's.

It seems like a serious effort.

And I think the timescales they're working to,

they're not ridiculously overly optimistic

is couple of years out, I think before customer cars

are likely to appear, which is realistic.

I think if they know the powertrain's proven

and I think you have to be excited about them,

don't you, until such time that they appear

or down or quietly disappear.

But I think from what we know,

the backing and the aspiration for the car,

I think you'll know if the story moves on

every six months or something

and it builds up some momentum, then you know it's.

It's legit, yeah.

Yeah, it's legit and it's gonna appear

and it's worth getting properly excited about,

but good luck to them, I think.

It's a potentially very cool thing.

Yeah, we were saying earlier,

it's a bit sad that there's lots of these

2 million plus pound hypercars out there,

but very few hot hatches and sports cars,

actually more hypercars.

Great time to be a billionaire.

Yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah.

Has there ever been a bad time to be a billionaire?

Right about.

Yeah.

But yeah, I think it's where you can raise funds

and you don't have the restrictions of mass production

and global emission standards and all of that.

You're building in such tiny numbers,

which is a shame and you do worry for the bigger OEMs

of if you're just only offering sort of homogenized products

that doesn't make you stand out from anything,

why do you want to, you spent however many years,

50, 60, 70 years building your brand

and people wanting to be part of your brand

that you now only offer products that everyone else has.

Or you have to go to seven figures

and have something to fleet.

I think it's hard to understand, isn't it?

If you're into cars,

but you don't necessarily understand

why manufacturers are making the cars they're making,

but why these startup super car companies

can make those or why the best Resto modders

can do what they're doing.

So I think well,

why are you building all this boring stuff?

But it's because they're the only ones

that have to play to the big boy rules, aren't they really?

So it's, yeah, they're very much,

their hands are tied, aren't they?

They have to, and they lay their,

as we know, they lay their product plans down

and investment plans years and years in advance

with what legislators tell you,

you're going to have to build,

what customers tell you they want

and you've got to get that blend

and it's a bit scary at the moment

because there's quite a few companies

announcing some very scary financial results on them

that were announcing very impressive results.

Yeah, very short timing, not so long ago.

Yeah, so it's interesting and quite a bit disheartening,

isn't it, that all the,

it's really cool stuff,

but it's all for the few at the very top.

Stout of reach, isn't it?

As the sports cars, the Cayman boxers,

the A110s, the hot hatches and stuff

are all coming to the end of their life

and there was nothing put in a product plan

five years ago to replace them.

So whatever happens, whether we go back

to more plug-in hybrids and internal combustion engine stuff,

that's going to take, there's going to be a period.

It's another three, four, five years, isn't it,

before anything new starts to appear,

unless they can repurpose to a bit of a sort of

F8 Tributo style rehash of existing models,

just to stop gaps, which I think,

certainly, I don't know, like Porsche is the biggest one.

But I think Boxer and Cayman is out,

it's in certain territories, the security

that you can put in the car doesn't meet requirements.

That's quite, if you think that's quite

an old platform now.

But you think generation.

Fixing that versus trash throwing

the whole thing away, starting again,

I think they'll probably try and fix that, won't they?

And re-skin it or do something,

I don't know, they've got to do something, haven't they?

Yeah, everyone's in that same boat.

And people are going to want to buy them as well.

Yes, it's all very well I was talking about,

oh, where are all the sports cars gone,

but the reason they've all been trickling away

is that the A110 has been hugely successful

in sort of our world.

We see them at our track days,

and we get a huge number of correspondence from owners.

But it's from a global car company point of think,

it's a tiny market, it's not something

you can sort of build anything substantial.

I'm looking at helping you though.

The next cars are all electric to appeal to that market.

And it normally has to be a joint venture.

A110 was a joint venture initially,

which obviously didn't go terribly well.

Yes, you need to, there's much more,

far more factors at play.

You take it to be, I think we said a couple of times,

being a product planner on the board of as Dicky's point

is that there's a major car company

playing by all the rules in every territory,

every market, trying to please everyone, you can't.

And it's who you upset, isn't it, along the way,

who you're prepared to take a risk on upsetting

and ultimately losing customers.

I think if you lose a customer,

it's so much harder to win that customer back,

isn't it?

But once they walk away,

whatever you've spent trying to get them in the first place,

it's two, three, four times that amount

to get them back again, to convince them that.

That feels like Porsche have upset their customers

in an attempt to please the investors and banks

and financial institutions to back an IPO valuation,

isn't it?

So they were betting their brand on a bold future strategy

that complied with all the regs

and that's where the world's going

and then the world doesn't quite follow that

and then you're left with your pants down, aren't you?

But at the time, that was the decision

we had to make.

To ignore that would have seemed even more ridiculous

if everything had gone in that direction

and then Porsche, well, we thought no one would do that.

It's a horrible position for everyone to be in.

Which is why we've loved doing our eras test

because we can ignore.

Look back.

But we have still been driving some cool new stuff.

Particularly, obviously, beginning of this year,

you were in and out Pagani's like most people

are in and out.

Yeah, just part of my contract.

Obviously, you've now lowered yourself

to being in and out of Ferraris,

having driven the F80.

Yeah, F80.

Another go to 296.

296, yeah, 296 GT-S, which I hadn't driven,

although it's been around for a little while.

And it was really interesting, actually,

because I went to the F80 launch

only with experience with the GT-B

and I remember that as being a lovely car

but quite muted and the character was quite dialed back

and maybe not as exciting as you want it to be.

And then getting in the F80 and they've suddenly brought,

it's a much more highly evolved

and more aggressively tuned engine,

but it's much more exuberant and vocal

and just a really exciting thing to be around.

And I got in the GT-S,

not expecting it to be anywhere near that

and it sounds brilliant.

And I know they've subsequently looked back

at the launch info and first drives and things

and they've worked quite hard

because they had to re-root a lot of the way

the engine breathes, I think,

and that's enabled them to make it sound much better.

But yeah, holy moly, it's such an exciting car,

more so because of the way it sounds,

I think when you guys were driving it as well,

weren't you?

Yeah, you really hear it sort of breathing,

don't you, sort of inhaling and exhaling.

I think you don't appreciate in having that bit

kind of taken away how much it removes

from the overall driving experience,

I think, suddenly to have that back

brings the whole thing to life and makes it,

it's always been ferociously fast car,

but somehow, now it's making the noise to go with it.

It's a real thrill.

Yeah, it makes your senses sort of linked now, aren't they?

Because you're hearing the same as what you're seeing.

And you can drop like a R8,

you can drop the window without dropping the roof

behind you, so that's just brilliant.

It's just like turning everything up,

but without any distortion of noise

through wind noise or anything,

so it gets even better when you do that.

It's a bit like taking the air filter

out of your normal car.

And it's like, it sounds a lot quicker,

but it's doing the same thing,

which is part of the experience, isn't it, the sound?

Maybe that's what Ferrari did.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, just launching the engine.

Loads of rubbish skating in.

And is it still, I haven't driven one since,

I think it was a car, and I drove onto Le Monde

and I did a Smurf press cut.

Yeah, I've driven that one.

The Spider-Man.

Spider-Man Smurfs.

The most photographed car, I think,

on the way to Le Monde from every kid on a bridge,

but it's the two, nine, six,

always those first drives,

what they were all about is performance,

because it was that hybrid system,

but I think you've mentioned it earlier

before we started recording,

you didn't really have that memorable character.

So has it bought some character into it

that makes it feel sound like a Ferrari?

I think if you take a friend out and they're not used

to those sorts of cars,

like if you took them out on a 458 or a Gallardo

or a Huracan or something,

and they'd never been in anything like that before,

it's absolutely what you would dream a supercar would be.

I think if your first experience of a supercar

was a early two, nine, six GTB,

I think you'd be shocked at how fast it was,

but you'd be a bit with the engine noise,

because that's supposed to be

the main event with those cars, isn't it?

But from what we experienced in the GTS,

it's a proper, yeah, really exciting

Ferrari Super Junior Supercar and sounds it.

And the engine is so important in a Ferrari

and that really is,

the chassis is incredible as well and the way it looks,

but the engine is as important.

Well, that hybrid pattern is so impressive, isn't it?

How it just is seamless in its applications.

Really well integrated.

And how it just fills the gaps when you need it to,

but it's still got a top end as well, isn't it?

That was always impressive.

Yeah, you've got massive low and mid range performance

and you can just sort of part throttle it

and drive around in a very high gear

and it's still effortlessly quick,

but when you really work it,

it's got a really strong appetite for revs, isn't it?

And you can, if you use the lower gears,

you're going really fast,

but you can just live in those lower gears,

currently second, third,

and maybe a little bit of fourth sometimes.

And it's quite a switching character, isn't it?

I think they've done a very good job

of making them very livable.

I know we spoke about that in a previous podcast

that you could do very long distances in it

and be quite comfortable,

but then when you really light it up,

it's super exciting.

So no, that was great.

And particularly straight after the,

pretty much straight after the F80,

it's kind of repositioned where I have 296 now,

which I think is partly due to experiencing the GTS

and partly because I'm in love with the F80

and there's a very strong connection

between those two cars now,

whereas I think 296 prior to the F80,

it wasn't connected to anything.

So I think it's kind of under where it fitted in

and the SF90 is a bit of an old sort of outlier really now,

how that fits in.

I think that's still slightly confusing.

Yeah.

Yeah, it sort of doesn't seem to have a remit

or a role, does it?

All the way you're supposed to see

and a V8 Ferrari sit in relation to a V6,

the hierarchy's not quite turned on its head,

but it's a bit-

It's a bit jagged, isn't it?

Shuffled up.

Yeah, shuffled the pack now,

which I'm sure it'll make more sense

when a few years down the line,

when other models start to appear,

but no, it's nice to have my initial opinion

changed slightly for the better, I think.

Yeah.

Again, from the supercar to the sensible family estate car

that you've been driving.

The sensible family estate that's 120 grand,

550 horsepower.

Yeah, M3 CS touring.

M3 CS touring.

You're impressed with this, weren't you?

I really liked it, yeah.

It was around Thruxton, so mostly on track

and a bit on the road.

Yeah, I've driven M4 CS and M3 CS Saloon before.

Really impressive cars,

but you get out thinking

I'd almost rather be in a proper sports car,

something a bit more bespoke.

Yeah.

Or a regular M3, M4.

Yeah, because that feels like

a more rounded proposition,

but I think being in a state,

it sort of colours how you look at it

and you think this is an estate car

I could use on a circuit

and it does really well on a circuit

and it's got loads of performance

and you can chuck dogs in the back

and maybe not at the same time.

But yeah, no, I really enjoyed it

and it felt really nice on the road as well.

Yeah.

Yeah, because we had M4 CS last year

at Milne Car of the Year.

Yeah.

And it felt, it was an impressive car,

but there was a pause with it, isn't it?

It's a really tire dependent weather dependent car.

The situation's dependent as well.

You would have a mega drive on it,

on a very sort of specific room

in the right frame and no traffic.

But then the rest of the time,

I'd rather be in your old long-term,

which is a better all-rounder, as you say,

but could do 90% of what CS can do when you push it.

You think, well, what was the point?

But then M5 and M2 CS

of both previous car of the year.

Winners and very completely big step up

from their standard cars, aren't they?

But those three and four CS,

Saloon and Coop never felt as special.

So it's interesting here, the touring,

whether it's a perception thing,

because you see this body shape or-

I think it's probably a perception thing.

Because if you're in an M4,

you naturally think it's gonna feel special all the time.

And if it doesn't, you feel a bit disappointed.

But being the estate, it felt very similar actually.

I drove the two back to back to the M4,

but you're just more wowed at the fact

that you're in a state car that can feel like a coupe

and is really responsive and great on track.

It's probably not really any bulkier, is it?

But it's more marginal weight.

Yeah, 80 to 100 kilos, I think it is.

Which you do feel on a circuit, but-

But it's forgivable.

Exactly, yeah.

Because it's the biggest-

There's more margin in it.

Yeah, exactly.

It's such a heavy car to start with.

80 kilos is a smaller percentage

than it would be in a normal car.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, it's like carrying a passenger

or something in an M4, pretty much.

Yeah, it's like-

Dave Shep's wallet, maybe.

Maybe.

Your expenses.

It's pretty similar sort of perception thing, isn't it?

To RS7 and RS6.

You always feel you're having a better drive

in an RS6 than you are in an RS7.

Why am I anyway?

Yeah, I think you go into a slightly different mode.

Don't need your expectations shifts a little bit.

You're quite like the novelty of a state car

that's that capable, maybe.

I think it's less expensive, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah.

It's similar.

AMG have done it.

You'd always rather be in an E63 estate than the Saloon,

although actually the Saloon was arguably

the better, more impressive car to drive

when you were really going,

but you always have, well, you'd want an estate car.

Yeah, and it's more of an achievement,

it feels like, making an estate do what it does.

So, yeah, no, I really, really enjoyed it.

I think it's a bit of a cliche saying

all the car you could ever need,

but it kind of is.

It's a track car, family car.

Would you take it on track?

Do you know what?

Considering how good it was on track,

I wouldn't, I mean, usually we drive like an SUV

on the track on a launch,

and you think what is the point of this

and nobody's going to do it.

But this was on cup two, ceramic brakes,

and it felt really sorted.

I did about 20 laps in a row, and it did.

Really?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it just kept going.

That's really good.

So, I think I would, just for the novelty.

Just for the novelty.

Yeah, yeah.

The flip that you put on Evo's Instagram.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's loads of modes to play with as well,

like two-wheel drive mode, if you want to.

It's got all the same.

Have they changed the, any of the X drive or M modes

to compensate for the estate and the weight,

or is it just the same as an M3 CS?

I don't know, there wasn't that much detail, actually,

in the press release and material,

but I imagine they have a lot more weight out the back.

They probably tweak the dampers or something.

I know the standard M3.

I think they did with the regular touring.

Yeah, yeah.

And there's different bracing.

It's based on the convertible M4.

There's a lot of underfloor bracing.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it's all on.

So it's just software tweaks.

Yeah, probably the dampers or things.

Yeah, I'm gonna look forward to having a go

in one of those, looking for a replacement for the RSI.

And you've been driving old cars, James.

Yeah, I've been.

Which seems to be, I don't know,

is that unfair that all these guys

have nicked all the good stuff

and you've been left in the old stuff, or?

Or we drove the old stuff as well.

Yeah, yeah.

We were present.

I had help.

I wasn't doing anything well, handedly.

Luckily, I had these two to help me.

So yeah, I've been driving cars from a decade ago.

We've reached the 2010s in our Evo era series.

Which is the decade when you started?

Yep, yeah.

I turned pro in the end of 2012.

I got a proper job writing about cars.

So that was the first of the,

yeah, if anyone hasn't followed the series,

we've started in the 80s, to an 80s, 90s, noughties.

And then 2010s, this is the first time

I'd experienced these cars as press cars when they were new.

Just maybe why I ended up writing this one.

I didn't get to just drive them and enjoy it.

I had to turn out.

So you didn't drive these in period then

as a road tester?

Yep, yeah, I did.

Oh, you did, okay, right.

Yeah, so.

So this is one that you would have gone in with

a knowledge base and sort of a view and an opinion on them.

Yeah.

Were there, so run through the cars.

It was a Fiesta ST, a Banky ST200.

ST200, best hot hatch ever.

Some bloke from Richard Meaton brought that one.

Yeah, it's my car, was it really late?

McGann, 265 cut.

That's right.

A110, regular.

Yeah, just regular.

Just a base model, a 110.

911 Carrera Gen.

911.2 GTS PDK.

That's right, make it nice and easy to find one.

R35 GTR, which obviously being an R35 GTR,

there is no such thing as a standard one,

so it was the one with the mildest.

It had a very, very, very mild tune

and it was one of the cars,

certain cars in certain areas,

in the test, we could have had it in an early group.

So we could have had it in Nauti's,

but Nauti's, the long list of cars

we would have quite happily had in the Nauti test

was so long that we ended up whittling it down

to seven cars, all the other years we stuck to six.

So, and I think it was announced,

wasn't it in 08, first cars appeared in 09

and then they just started to appear in the UK around then.

Well, we had it in, see, Carvia wasn't it in 08, 09?

I don't think it was 08, was it, was it 9?

Might be 9, but yes, and also it's the sort of 2010s.

It just sort of dominated all the tests

in the early Nauti, so that was our excuse anyway.

It fitted in nicely though,

it didn't seem like a totally out of place.

Yeah, nice and mega tech.

And the other one was the McLaren 650S as well.

What was your view on these going into this?

Yeah.

And what was it when you came out the other side?

Yeah, well it was a pleasant surprise actually.

So I wondered if this might be the decade

where things started to lose steam slightly

because the Nautis was amazing, like Dicky just mentioned

there was such a long list of cars

we could have put in that decade.

It really was a bit of a golden era

for driver's cars, 90s the same.

And then I loved being on the 80s test,

a couple of issues before

because just the novelty of driving

these amazing old cars and their shapes

and they were so full of character.

So I wondered, this was the decade

where curb weights began to get a bit higher,

dimensions began to get a bit wider,

a bit broader, a bit fatter generally,

interiors start to get more complicated,

more touch screens, more modes.

It was really interesting,

the previous tests pretty much every car

was a manual in all the previous tests.

The S1, it was half and half, half of them were manual,

half of them were double clutch, paddle shifts.

And yeah, little things like half the cars

had a real handbrake, half of them had a switch.

This was that point.

So I, going into it, I thought,

that's a shame, I'm writing this one,

I've got the one where it'll be our,

sorry guys, not as good as it was.

But actually, all six of these cars were really,

I mean, okay, we've deliberately chosen six

really characterful cars,

but they really were such memorable cars to drive.

Very, very different as well.

Super different.

Really different.

And again, your point on the long list

for the noughties, the 2000s,

this equally could have been quite long

because remember when we were coming up with it,

there's cars that straddle it,

they say, well, how can you not include a Type R,

how can you not include a Ferrari,

how can you not include a Kaver instead of a 911,

and a couple of S's.

Yeah, we could have had a Cayman GT4,

that's awesome.

R8s and all kinds, second generation R8s

and all kinds of cars.

It was still a rich thing.

It really was, because for each of these tests,

we're not trying to choose,

these were the six best cars of that decade,

because that would be like a sort of super eco-tea.

The idea is that it's a bit of a kind of snapshot

of that time.

Yeah, and then we always had a 911.

Yes.

Because that was our sort of control.

Yes.

Cars through the decades

and we could have done the same with Golf,

but then if you fixed too many points in the test,

then you don't get the variety.

So I think the 911 was the one

that really indicates how much cars have grown

and power and weight and all of those things.

And then the others just give you the differences

between the decades, don't they?

And I think it's a really nice,

really, really strong group of cars.

It really was, yeah.

I mean, I think they were all a five-star car, actually.

Yeah, they're all, I mean, it's just looking

at the list in front of you there,

just the Megane, is that rich?

Yeah.

We could have had quite a few Renault Sport models,

couldn't we?

Yeah, we could have had a Clio 200 cut as well,

which would have been great.

So you did have to make a decision

between cars within the same manufacturer,

sometimes yes, but now you're scratching around

to find a manufacturer that's barely double-figured.

That's any of them.

Yeah, yes, they're all Clio.

Yeah.

No, I would argue with that.

I think we've always, for those that aren't familiar

with the test, we've tried not to gravitate

towards the most extreme, yes.

RS's and really stripped-out stuff

that we would have maybe done more of at the time.

So I think subtle differences, aren't they,

between the way we've selected these cars

and maybe some other group tests,

but I think it gives you a better sense

of what each decade was like, I think.

And part of the reason we chose that particular

911, the 991.2,

Is that the one?

That's when they went turbocharged, you know?

So actually the other theme of the decade

was turbocharging.

Yes, everything is turbocharged.

Was there a car that you were,

well, all of you, because you were on it, weren't you?

Yeah, I was, yeah.

Which was the car there that you most wanted to drive

and which was the car you thought,

not that there's a duffel in there,

but that you take it or leave it.

So, yeah.

Because you've got exposure to it

or you've driven plenty of them.

The one I was most excited to revisit going in

was the McGann,

because when I was a youthful road tester,

I was a bit snobby about front wheel drive cars.

I was only interested in sports cars.

And the McGann was one of the first hot hatches I drove

that made me realise just how exciting

a really well-sorted hot hatch could be.

And it was really nice to go back into that one

because, and actually we should give a thank you

to the company that put us all for that.

Yeah, guys are driving heroes,

dotco.uk.

They've, I found them on Instagram actually,

but they don't have a massive inventory of cars,

but they've generally,

they've always got a really lovely,

whether it's a Ford hot hatch or a Renault or something.

And it's always an absolute minter with low miles

and exactly how you would want one.

So part of the challenge of this test is

when we've had quite specific cars to find,

it's like it was racking our brains who owns one

or who do we know.

So we'll thank everyone when we go through,

in a later podcast, all the reflects on all the heroes.

But yeah, driving heroes were really, really good guys.

Introduced us to Lee who's the owner of the McGann.

He was a lovely guy and joined us for three days.

Yeah, yeah.

So that's been part of the pleasure of the test

is spending some time with the people

that owned some of the cars.

So yeah, that was, that was a,

I had a number of Renault Sport McGann long-term test cars

during that period.

So I had really fond memories of that car.

It was just a, it was a real moment, I think,

Renault Sport at that time.

They were absolutely on a par with Porsche

and their RS products, I think,

in their own sort of area of our world.

So it was really nice to jump back

into one of those again.

And it was kind of a civilian spec, if you like.

Yeah, it had comfort seats, didn't it?

It didn't have the Riccardo seats,

which, yeah, was quite strange, but quite nice actually.

Customers don't spend huge amounts of money

on options that us as journalists assume everyone,

so yeah, have the Riccardo seats,

they're several thousand pound, but yeah, yeah.

Funny, though.

Yeah, so that was the car you wanted to revisit.

Which was the one that, I mean,

there's no Duffers there,

but which was one Duffer, do you see?

There's one Duffer, do you keep it, though?

Yeah, 650S, never rated them.

They're being a bit cruel,

because the Fiesta ST200 that we use was Dickey's own car.

Not that he's trying to pump up the values or anything,

but I don't need to pump the values of those,

they're already overpriced.

Yeah, I had a vested interest.

I had some skin in the game in this test,

but it was quite weird.

I was quite nervous about how these guys

would feel about the car,

or you take it quite personally,

when I wait and see what they're like,

and they smile, and what are they,

and I've had a good time,

but it was funny to drive my own car

in an EVO group test context,

because I had to try and get in it

like I would get in all the other cars

and think, oh, driving position's a bit funny.

But then, yeah, it was pretty well received.

Yeah, no, I actually really liked it.

I think it's one of the best hatches

I've driven for the road, at least.

You were looking up second hands.

I was, yeah.

As soon as I got back,

I got the accommodation.

I was like, oh, seven grand, eight grand, yeah.

No, really sweet things.

Dickey said 250,000 pounds when we put it up.

Yeah, that's what was on these shorts, Fadi.

He was like, I think one of you

was gonna fire it off.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're like, that corner's flat over there.

Let me just adjust guitar presses for you.

I think, I really like it.

I've got, there's a bit of a personal story

with the car, because my dad bought it new,

and then he, very lucky, he gave it to me

for my 50th birthday.

I know, I don't look anywhere new.

So, yeah, it's kind of, it's an important car to me,

but I think people have quite a snobby,

there's quite a lot of snobbery

around hot hatches, aren't there, I think?

And the Renault Sport stuff was the sort of

thinking person, discerning, enthusiast hot hatch,

and then the Ford stuff is,

oh, it's a bit chavier as this or is that.

But actually, when you jump in it

and you use it as an everyday car,

being a Ford of that era,

everything works really well,

it's comfortable, it's functional.

And being of that era, it's still quite small,

still quite light, it's still really lively,

and the handling balance is more surprising than you think.

That was the generation, wasn't it,

on E-Coti 2018, it was a non-200.

But John drove it up to Huig for Carl the Year

and he sort of got out and makes for dinner and goes,

oh, I think I've just, in that usual John Barker way,

oh, I think I've just driven the winner.

One was a long-term, that instant,

and everyone on that week was, as Dickey says,

you got in it and it did everything you expected it to do

but a much higher level than your expectations are.

And Dickey said, people can be a bit snobby about them,

but they're still a brilliant hot hatch

which is what Ford just gets.

Right, but even when they're not an ST,

a Fiesta, that generation of Fiesta,

it's just a fundamentally right car.

It's right from the beginning, wasn't it?

It's like the first focus, it was just fundamentally spot on.

And the ST feels like it's been engineered to be fun

at road speeds as well as, you know,

the McGannis sort of track and road

and it's just designed to be fun,

but like you say, can still work as a normal car

to do normal things with so well.

Fiesta and the McGannis sort of opposites, really.

I think the Fiesta, you get in it and drive it

and its normal pace is actually quite a lot

of what it has to give.

So then if you think, right, I'm gonna drive it fast now.

It doesn't actually go much faster or come alive anymore

because it just feels really energetic

and kind of playful.

The McGannis a bit more serious, isn't it?

So you have to dig deeper,

but there's more to dig into.

And then it kind of starts,

the diff really starts to work

and it kind of comes together

in a more serious performance car.

They kind of come at the hot hatch brief

from different sides, don't they?

Both are really, really nice.

But yeah, the one I was most unsure about

going into the test was the Nissan GT-R

because the only version I've driven on public roads

was the Nismo version, which is very specialized

and very, well, it cost six figures

when it was new, the R35 famously,

I think it was only just over 50,000 pounds

when it was launched and the performance to pound ratio

was incredible and then through its life

it gradually got pricier as things do.

This was, if I remember correctly,

this was a 2014 model year car.

So that's when it had a few updates.

They made the suspension a bit softer,

they updated it.

A bit more power as well than the original ones.

Yeah, yeah.

And Nissan, way of every year there was a new model year

with incremental changes, different bolts

and titanium bits.

But it was an awesome thing.

I find it, I think I would find it

a really difficult car to group test.

I can see why it won so many group tests

because it sort of, it's so.

They're very much their own thing.

Yeah, they do things very differently.

It's been a long time.

It'd been a long, I couldn't have told you actually.

Last time I'd driven a regular R35.

I think we drove a Nismo at the same time

on the LFA and 22B test.

But I was surprised how light the steering was

and it sort of took a little while to connect with the car

which is not how I remember it.

The Nismo is really tactile.

Yeah, that's very, very kind of sharp and connected.

But I think the, what surprised me about the Nissan

is we used to, at that time,

it was big and heavy in a way that its contemporaries

weren't that big and they weren't that heavy

but the harder you drive it, the better it gets.

But now we're used to big, heavy cars

but the harder you drive them,

the worse they get, don't they?

They sort of feel compromised by their weight

and what they do and then I think the Nissan

always felt like a bit of a magic trick

because it's the way it does things

is not like any other car

and then what it actually is capable of doing

is not like any other car.

It covers the ground.

So, effectively it's ferocious, isn't it?

When you really do sort of dig into it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The first time you've driven one,

I thought it was fine.

Yes, it was actually.

And yeah, it's funny

because you hear lots of different opinions about them.

Some people say, oh, it's just like a computer game.

Other people say it's a really analog,

mechanical feeling car.

I kind of, I was split between the middle, I think,

because like you were saying,

the steering's quite light and disconnected.

Then the whole car's got a brutality about it.

It's really connected and...

You can hear it sort of chunkering away as well.

It feels a bit crude in some...

Yeah, low speed, the car part,

the diffs are winding up,

trying to play the parking space, aren't they?

Yeah, exactly.

So it's like a mix of modern and old school for me.

I really enjoyed it though.

It was kind of everything I hoped it would be.

I'm really glad it was in the test

because it was, and it's set,

I think maybe the whole industry

on a slightly different course as in...

I think it's certainly turned Porsche,

you know, some of their car,

certainly the Turbo 911 Turbo

became quite a different beast.

Post-R35, it's much more performance,

like driving performance-focused

rather than just effortless, mile-eating.

Yeah, I think...

To your point on it,

it feels like in computer gambling,

you can always tell when someone hasn't driven

the R35, because that's the...

It's just not for you.

That was at the time.

It takes some driving, it takes you...

And I think that's, I've,

I would be honest, like before I drove one,

I was like, oh, they're just like,

sort of just like driving on a Gran Turismo.

But when you drive one,

I think you're taken aback by how physical it is

and you do have to drive it.

You have to be concentrating.

You have to be sort of prepared to take control.

Otherwise, it won't throw you off the road.

But to get anything out of it and to understand...

You definitely have to commit to it.

It doesn't just go down the road super good

without any thought.

And it makes some more,

some other supercars feel actually a bit more

sort of switch-like.

You expect the GTR to be a bit of a switch on and off,

isn't it?

But actually, you can be very precise with it

and get into a flow.

And it can make some supercars that you think

will be really engaging and tactile and stuff,

feel a little bit more disconnected.

Almost too calm and precise.

Yeah, so, I'm a big fan of R35s, yeah.

And then a complete opposite to that

was the Alpine A110.

So, very light, very, you know,

comparative.

And also, the only all-new car in that.

Yes.

That group, wasn't it?

That's true.

Everything else was sadly,

well, at the time, they weren't well,

they were midway through their life cycle.

But they were still evolutions over the thing, yes.

But yeah, they only,

it's still the A110, I think you could...

I think the Alpine still feels like that now, though,

doesn't it?

It's such a singular thing,

because it is, isn't it?

It's kind of evolved gradually,

but fundamentally, you could drive a regular,

like entry-level one now,

and it would be pretty much identical

to an entry-level car when it was launched.

You know it's not gonna get replaced

with a Gen 2 A110,

so it's a real kind of something to savor, isn't it?

It's quite timeless, isn't it?

Because they're not adding power and grip to it

every year and making something else.

It's just the same thing that's persistent.

Yeah, they're keeping with,

I mean, the naming's changed,

aren't they, between S and GT and stuff like that,

but they're still offering a simple entry point

and not just chasing higher up the price point.

And they've not messed with it either,

have they?

No.

They were all seemed to be some different shade of blue,

didn't they initially,

but now they're offering lots more personalization

with the color, but in essence,

they haven't messed with the shape

or changed the lights much, or it's just very pure.

Yeah, very pure and very defined of what it wants

to be and it's not trying to be anything else,

which I think as time, as each year has gone on,

there's more respect and desire for that sort of car,

isn't there?

I think they'll be very collectible as a consequence

because you don't really have to think that hard about,

I need the SE 2017 model year versus,

I could have any of them and it would be lovely.

And actually the base one,

as this one was is arguably the best.

There's a lot to be said for the base one.

I think base or are,

they're the two extreme,

you could almost justify having one of each almost.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, and going up previous eras,

the Elise was such a star of the 90s

and this is almost the closest equivalent the 10s had to,

and I like to say we're still making the Elise,

but it'll become a bit more hardcore.

And this was, had a lot of the principles of the Elise,

but you could drive one every day.

Well at least it strayed a long way

from the original car to our point a minute ago.

They got firmer and more aggressive and more powerful

and kind of strayed from that light,

simple works on any road and on the track sort of vibe.

So it's quite a trick that they've pulled off, I think,

and people seem to appreciate them more and more and more.

Don't they?

It's appealing, it's getting stronger.

They start with price and it's forced cylinders

and it's a auto box or there isn't a manual version.

But actually, I don't think anyone ever gets out

of an A1 10 car which had a manual version.

I'd be curious that if someone,

I know doing manual swaps is a thing,

isn't it, like the M3 CSL or,

I'd be curious to see what one was like.

I think it'd be, clearly it'd be different,

but I don't know that it would be better necessarily.

No, it'd be a different experience, wouldn't it?

But whether it would,

I think it just flows so nicely, doesn't it?

It's uninterrupted, isn't it, with the panels, I think.

And the engine, it's nice enough, isn't it?

But it's not something you're gonna savor necessarily.

It's nice, an engine to do a job, isn't it,

rather than sort of something you're gonna

be emotionally attached to.

It's just there to bring the best of the car,

get the best out of the car, isn't it?

Was there, you two,

what was it, was there a standout car

that surprised you more than you thought?

Apart from the Fiesta?

Yeah, I was gonna say the Fiesta, actually.

But the McLaren, I think, was a big surprise

because you read a lot about older McLarans

being quite sanitized, quite boring, quite dull,

very effective, but not so involving.

But this 650S, the noise of it,

it actually felt too lively for the road at times,

like you're almost hanging on

and the steering's jiggling around

and you've got loads of turbo noise and things.

So that felt like a real,

a real different car to what I'd read about originally

and you guys have tested them in period.

I don't know whether you feel the same.

I think 12C was certainly quite a strange fish, actually.

It felt quite, really impressive in some ways

and obviously it was a very storied brand,

but a complete startup, effectively.

So as a first attempt, it was brilliant in some respects

and kind of missed the mark in others.

I think 650S was when they really started

to let the hair down a little bit.

I think 12C was a bit uptight

and a bit too...

Ron.

Yeah, possibly.

It was just a bit aloof and it was just very tied down

and this was done by numbers.

I don't remember 650S being quite as feisty as that one.

So I don't know whether it's had a bit of a...

It was supplied by McLaren, it's a heritage car.

It had just been like all these suspension,

everything was, so it was as fresh as fresh,

but bloody hell, it was proper feisty, wasn't it?

I loved it, because I was very lucky

I drove to and from the chutes in sort of North Yorkshire

in that car and yeah, I think it's the car

maybe they would have liked the 12C to be

with more development time, with more money

and maybe with a bit of outside influence on McLaren

because they were one tiny band of engineers

who did the 12C and I think this was their chance

to look at what other people said

I think famously they did a lot of the 12C development

in the sim as well, so they said at the time

because they to try and win themselves some time

and do stuff in parallel or rather than right

we've got this physical cast

and now we start to develop it,

so I do wonder whether some of it was defined

in a virtual sense.

It's almost how it felt the way it steered

and there wasn't that sort of organic feel

which the 650S I think then informed

they're so good now steering and pedal feel

and they're just about as good as it gets

and I think there's a lot of, you can trace a lot of that

kind of the germination, I think definitely

sort of started to mature in that.

And part of the reason why we put McLaren in the test

because 2010s was actually a real golden era

for supercars, they were incredible cars

we could have had probably six mid-engines

supercars in the test, couldn't we actually?

But we weren't with them because we could have had

the Ferrari 458 Talier and Specialli and so on

but as you said, Dickey, it was sort of almost a start-up

even though it wasn't a history.

I think it was one of the most important arrivals

was it?

And it was in 2010, I think it was early 2010

when McLaren Automotive was officially launched.

It was a big thing, wasn't it?

Coming into, you're going straight up against,

they spent decades fighting Ferrari in the Formula One

and then you're going straight into their back garden

by the way, we want to have a piece of your road car

market.

I don't think we appreciate quite

what they've achieved actually.

I think because if you're into cars

then McLaren name is it's well rooted in your brain

isn't it?

But for them to go from a standing start

to what they did and where they are now

certainly in the quality of the cars that they build.

Yeah, because a 675 LT is one of my, yeah, that's...

Yeah, that's a 600 LT is awesome, 765 LT is awesome,

V20S is amazing, they've made so many great cars

and I know we bemoan the fact that they're spun

off the same, you know, a lot of the same platform

but actually if you drove them all together

I'm sure they would feel the differences

between the cars, so no, it's arguably

the most significant car in that group, isn't it?

Yeah, it spurred other super car makers on as well

as it changed what they became as well, including Ferrari.

And then the, yeah, kind of the sort of

date and point to a controlled car

we've had in each of this test is a 911 Carrera

as you said, we didn't want a GT3 or a Turbo,

we wanted a sort of mainstream

for want of a better word.

So this one, the facelifted 991 generation car,

first to go turbo and we deliberately chose a PDK car

as opposed to a manual.

Yeah, I think it would have been perverse

to we could have found a manual,

but I think PDK's A, it's really good

and B, it's, you know, you look in the classifiers

and there are a lot more PDK's than stick shifts.

So we needed to sort of get a sense

of what that felt like in the context of that group.

I should thank RPM Technic

while we're thanking people for finding cars

because they were extremely helpful in finding a car

that they had for sale and might still be for sale.

Actually, I'm not sure, but yeah, thanks to them

and the owner for letting us borrow the car.

It was a really nice car, it was lovely.

Because again, we wondered if this might be the point

where the 911 started.

Well, it was in because the Gen 1 991

had a bit of a troubled birth, didn't it?

It was...

Yeah, the steering was a bit weird

and that those funny anti-roll control and stuff, wasn't it?

Technology, to your point earlier on,

it was that first generation of 991

was technology appearing on cars,

but not quite resolved.

And you think, well, that's the right thing to do

because that's where it's all going.

But if a piece of technology isn't right,

it can really trip a car up.

And I think that early 991...

Felt really wooden.

Yeah, it felt very disconnected.

They got on top of it before the Gen 2 car,

but yeah, it was a bit of a misfire, wasn't it?

It was that seven-speed manual as well, wasn't it?

It was just quite...

Yeah, you never quite...

It was just a horrible box at that point.

The gate was quite ill-defined, indistinct.

This just felt like a great 911 again.

Really well sorted, yeah.

Small and placeable and sharp and just on the...

More of a sports car than a GT, kind of feel.

And the engine character is quite different, isn't it?

I think it does mark quite a step between that

and the non-turbo cars.

But it's still got an appetite for revs,

and it's still sort of linear.

And I should mention this was a GTS as well,

whereas previously we've had Carreras and Carreras Ss.

We went for the GTS spec because that was sort of...

That was the biggest seller, wasn't it?

Yeah, and they started to add more and more derivatives

to the 911 range, hadn't they, in this period?

So I think it was kind of one of the sweet spots,

wasn't it, in the range?

It's the one that I think that was the beginning of...

You either bought a Carrera or a GTS,

and sort of not the end of the S,

but everyone always wants...

Yeah, it made more sense if you're going to spend a bit more.

You might as well spend a bit more again and get that.

Yeah, the great sort of sales business model

that some of these manufacturers have, which is...

But it's cracking cars.

I remember it came out, it was...

It did make a...

That engine, you always a bit...

Because it was small T for these, wasn't it, turbo,

and big T for the big one.

But it still felt like a proper flat six engine,

doesn't it, and how it delivers the power?

Yeah, it makes good noise in it,

and it's got a good character about it, definitely.

And although it is a bit bigger than the previous generation car,

like you said, it still felt small on those roads,

it still felt...

You felt in touch with every corner of the car,

and you weren't breathing in when stuff was coming the other way,

and so on, it felt just right.

And it did set a bit of a trend, didn't it,

because it was the facelift car,

and they resolved some of those early Gen 1 cars,

some of the issues with them of how they drove,

but it's similar to when the 992 first came out.

It was only until the Gen 2's come out that actually,

to your point earlier, the Carrera T,

and the S, and the normal Carrera that you guys have driven,

and more than driven the T as well, it's a mega thing.

Feels like it's back to being what you expect the 992 to be,

and you're wondering this,

it's the first generation of everything

isn't quite ready these days.

It takes some tweaking and evolving,

and so the Gen 2 992 is equally now as impressive

as the Gen 2 991 evolved into.

But it's just sort of a landmark, isn't it,

or sort of a line in the sound of where the 991 goes,

and as our date and point throughout,

isn't it, it's sort of stuck from that early...

Yeah, big change from a 3.2 Carrera.

But yeah, within each era,

they still feel the brakes are really good.

This is really well, it has an interesting balance,

and just feels together in a way that some of the other cars,

they might hit high, high, or low,

you know, then their ability isn't concentrated

around that sweet spot in quite the way

the 991 seems to manage.

And it's still, when we're talking to engineers

and things on launch, it's about benchmarking.

Regardless of what, if it's a performance car,

there's always seems to be a 991 somewhere

in their engineering pool of competitor cars

just to drive regardless of whether they're building

a pure sports car or just a performance car,

because its control weights,

and everyone bangs on, oh, motoring journalists

are just blind for 991, that's all they think of,

but there's a reason for it,

because the industry uses them as a, you know,

it's just considered as that sort of date and point

for a lot of driver's cars, isn't it,

they've just finessed it over the years.

Yeah, I think you can see that as well

in these decade tests that we've done,

I think they're probably less quirky,

like the more modern they get,

the less quirky they are compared to their contemporaries,

but they're still, they're definitely different.

Yeah, hang on to the things that are important each time.

So, it was a really, it was fantastic.

Yeah, well, another, they've all been absolutely,

you know, been privileged to have been on any of them,

to then read the copy and to see it on the page,

you think that that's a, just the difference in the cars

and the evolution of all the cars

and how the mix that you've all managed to,

the cars have come up with to use,

have just been a really good spread

and representation of what that era was like.

Yeah, yeah.

It's, and yeah, we've got one more to do,

and we're doing 2020s, which you guys in the process

of doing at the moment.

So that's...

Yeah, so this 2010s one is in the issue that,

well, I suppose the time this podcast goes out,

it will have been on sale for about a week.

Yeah, so yeah, that would be an issue

that's current when you head into a shop and listen to this.

At that point, it's getting barely hot in this room,

so we can take a break, just to go ahead and fridge.

And we're gonna come back,

because James has also been driving something,

talking of eras, a new era for Aston Martin,

because you've been behind the wheel of a Valhalla.

That's right, yeah, I'm proud to tell you.

So we will, you can tell us all about that when we come back,

after we've cooled down a bit.

In shorts.

Well, welcome back to part two of episode 26.

I told you I'd get it right.

We're back in our sweaty room, which is lovely.

We are talking in part two, Valhalla.

James has been very fortunate to drive prototype.

In the UK round stove circuit.

It was, yeah.

The Stoeschleifer.

Yeah, yeah.

With all that undulation.

Yeah, elevation changing.

Yeah, there's a bit of a slope in one bit.

One corner is good.

Isn't that the accessibility to drive into the office?

So what's it like with Aston Martin's mid-engine,

V8 hybrid?

Yeah.

Far up to Valkyrie, isn't it?

Supercar, son of Valkyrie?

Yeah, I think that was the initial headline we gave it.

Yeah.

Way back.

Third cousin.

Yeah, twice removed.

Well, this goes, just some back story on this, isn't it?

This was Geneva Motor Show when Aston Martin

had its Danny Bahar moment of showing

Fankwish, Valhalla, Valkyrie, Valkyrie Pro

all on the stand in front of potential investors.

Head of the IPO, along with a load of electric Legandas

hitting at the back of the stand.

And this was going to be part of a,

the idea was three mid-engine cars, wasn't it,

from Fankwish up to Valkyrie.

Vankwish has turned into a vanquish,

front of a vanquish, surprise, surprise.

I mean, I've got Valhalla,

which has been through,

well, this is the first time we've seen

sort of anything that's close to production,

but it's been in all kinds.

It's been in a Bond film already, hasn't it?

It's sat in a wind tunnel.

It's been around for a long time, hasn't it?

It's interesting though, isn't it?

Aston Martin can be so frustrating sometimes

because you look back to Betsy and stuff

with that weird Lagonda, powerfully ugly.

No, the SUV, I can't remember what it was called now,

really ugly looking, but super luxury,

V12, well before Bentayga and all those things.

And because of, I guess lack of resource,

it never came to be.

But that could have been a way ahead of everyone else

and a more serious stab at a really bespoke SUV.

And then Valhalla went right the way through the process

with their own V6, didn't it, at one point,

which there was one with regular turbos,

one with e-turbos,

which again would have been way ahead,

but because they're always in such a sort of,

not always unstable, but they don't have that stability

that may be far out of this.

There's always a distraction,

or there's always the funding, isn't there?

There's always-

I feel for that there's really good ideas within the company

and there's really talented engineering people

and the things they do manage to do

with what they've got.

And I think now there's been some stability

from post-Moz to now with Felicia there for a while,

quietly in the background, just making things work.

Actually, the cars that they've produced in that period

are the best they've had in 20 years, aren't they?

Yeah, I mean, that's what our portfolio now is.

From Vantage up to Vanquish and then DBX-707

and DBX-S.

Now Valhalla and Valkyrie, which has been delivered

and as you know, sort of got your hearing back,

haven't done it to them on,

but yeah, they've got that great sort of product portfolio

and they've got an F1 team now that is benefiting

from sort of the stability in the regs

so they're finishing in point

and all of that stuff,

although they've solved their stake in the F1 team.

Well, Lawrence has sold his stake in the F1 team.

But they've got brand-wise,

they're absolutely where they need to be, aren't they?

Yeah, product, I suppose.

Yeah, because he needs,

having spent some time with Adrian Hallmark,

the current CEO, he's got,

he knows what they need to do for those next steps.

It's stuff that we've talked about before

on the podcast, I think, but also just in the office

and when we're talking about Aston Martin,

it's that journey now for the customer.

So you've got Vantage, Vantage, DBX-S.

You don't have to jump from a Vantage to a vanquish

and somehow find another 200,000 of pants.

Well, Aston's got much more breadth of sort of permission

to do far more things than Bentley had, haven't they?

Actually, they can go into Formula One

and they could and are in, they're in GT3 racing

and they've got a much broader proposition

so far as their road cars go,

they just haven't got the might of VW group behind them,

have they, which is the limiting factor.

But I think Valhalla's really intriguing, isn't it?

Because it's the first,

Valkyrie's like so far out on its own,

like this sort of moonshot crazy thing that they did,

but not much of that, I guess, where you can tell me,

but some of it is gonna filter down, isn't it,

into their approach and their philosophy,

but it was almost like a permission

to then do other mid-engine cars rather than a direct,

where we've taken this and this from Valkyrie

and applied it directly to the next car.

I'm guessing it's a different thing.

So yeah, kind of the context of this drive was,

as you mentioned, it was a stow,

which is the little kind of wiggly track

on the infield of Silverstone,

which is where Aston Martin has a permanent R&D base.

And the car I was driving was a prototype,

production starts, well, probably around now

for the finished item,

but this was kind of physically representative

of customer cars, but it was off tooling,

it wasn't a production car,

and the software is yet to be finalized,

and it's yet to be fully homologated,

but it was pretty representative

in terms of dynamically how it drives

and in terms of physical quality.

And as you say, Valkyrie was such a kind of mountain peak,

you know, it was such a unique proposition.

This is, it kind of takes some of the philosophy of Valkyrie,

it's quite an extreme aerodynamic concept,

and it's a carbon fiber tub,

so you know, I think it's only the third ever

carbon fiber Aston Martin, the 177,

and obviously the Valkyrie,

and that's been designed in collaboration with the F1 team,

or the kind of tech-consorting arm of the F1 team.

So yeah, loads of downforce,

this enormous rear wing that kind of rises hydraulically

on stilts at the back of the car,

active rear wing, active front wing,

and as you say, the engine was a V6,

and I think Andy Palmer signed it off as a V6,

and it's now an AMG-sourced V8, so.

But different to their others, isn't it?

That's right.

Black plane, black series,

like the other engines,

they can go inside it now,

can't they?

They haven't got that restriction.

The way it was described to me is it's almost like

they have the sweet shop of all the internals

they could put in it from the whole AMG group, if you like.

So they cherry pick and do their own thing as well.

So the engine develops,

I've written the figures down here

because I can't memorize them,

it's 828 PS on its own from the V8,

and then there's an additional 250 or so PS

from three electric motors.

So it's got a fully electric front axle

to electric motors on the front.

Then you've got the V8 in the middle

and behind that integrated into the transmission,

which is Aston Martin's first ever dual clutch gearbox.

They've never done one before.

There's a third electric motor back there.

So your total power output is 1064 BHP.

That's not far from Valkyrie actually, is it?

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Yeah, yeah.

And this time they've not bolted the engine straight

to the back of the V8.

Straight to the back of the V8.

So it doesn't make you have a mental breakdown

after sort of five minutes driving.

Does it sound any good though?

It's interesting because it was on track,

I was wearing quite a snug fitting crash helmet

and I really couldn't hear the V8 very well at all.

It's, I wondered if it might be too well insulated,

but race tracks are always funny.

They can sometimes mute a sound of a road engine,

particularly if you're wearing a lid and they don't feel,

you always feel, if you're driving on track,

sometimes that's what you're missing, isn't it?

That if you're using engine brake and stuff,

you can't quite judge it from,

you have to be looking at the red family

because you didn't use that.

That's because you're always driving

at the top end as well.

That's right, yeah.

I think the noise regs are sort of being cranked up as well,

aren't they, a bit like emission regs.

Yeah, that's right.

They might not be a big like Euro 60, Euro 7 step,

but I think they have incrementally,

things have to get quieter year on year.

Every few years there's like a few decibels.

So I think what we're driving,

what we've been driving for the last year or so

is probably made to again a different set of rules.

So you can never really compare like for like.

Yeah.

And I think it's gonna be increasingly hard,

isn't it, to make?

Yeah, it's tougher than ever.

And in fact, the chief engineer mentioned

they actually stiffened the engine mount slightly

to deliberately let a bit more vibration into the chassis.

Oh, so you get that sense of something?

Yeah, a little bit more connection too.

But it was a really, really impressive car.

So I had kind of two kind of stints on track.

I did a few sighting laps in the Vantage

to kind of re-familiarise myself with the track

and also had a passenger ride with Darren Turner,

the race driver and development driver

who's played a really key role in this car.

He's done endless testing in it,

at Nardo and Idiada and other test circuits

to kind of refine the active arrow

and all the other aspects of it.

And it was actually quite instructive

to drive the Vantage first

because normally when you drive a new Aston Martin,

you kind of have in your head

a feel of what it's gonna be.

You think it's gonna be a front engine rear drive.

It's a variation on the theme, isn't it?

Yeah, how much, how close are you sat to the rear axle?

Can't determine how you feel.

Yeah, yeah.

And this is the first time I've come to drive a new Aston Martin

without any kind of preconceived idea of how it will feel

because the Valkyrie is such an unusual thing.

It was never gonna feel exactly like a Valkyrie.

And the steering, the kind of rate of response

and weighting and the Vantage steering,

there's a lot of that in Valhalla,

even though it's a mid-engined car.

And it has, it's effectively four-wheel drive

because you have this electrically driven front axle.

It still has a lot of that feel of you are in an Aston Martin

or a modern era Aston.

And it was really interesting driving a car

with the front wheels coming into play.

So it's not overpowering,

but coming out of some of the slower hairpins there,

you feel the front kind of-

You feel that traction sort of contribution.

You definitely feel that the front's,

it's almost a bit like driving a hot hatch

with a kind of locking diff on the front.

You feel the steering just tight and slightly,

but it's not overpowering.

There are some quite tight,

I mean, they are quite extreme corners there, aren't they?

Yeah.

So it's a very twisty circuit.

Yeah, there's a 180 left onto the back straight,

as it were, and there's also kind of a hairpin

going on to the pit straight.

But it's probably more like corners

you're gonna feel on the road,

isn't it?

The radius of those corners is more like

accelerating out around about on a good twisty road

rather than very high speed stuff.

Yeah, and like all sort of,

it's more of a handling circuit than anything, isn't it?

So it does give you that blend of tricky circumstances

that you're more likely,

if it can't do this slow or medium speed corner,

it's got no chance of doing anything else.

Did it feel like, did you,

how does it work with different modes?

Did they let you play around with different modes

and did it change much between them?

Very much so.

So the same as the Vantage,

it's the same little kind of collar shaped twist,

the component that you use

and there's a kind of default sport driving mode,

then there's sport plus and then there's race

and race gives you the really extreme aero

whether the rear wing rises up

and it sort of slides backward from the corner as well

so it changes the whole centre of pressure.

So I drove it in sport plus

because that gives you the full

thousand plus horsepower map.

If you're in sport, it reduces it a bit

and then there is a sort of eco mode as well.

Can I try that?

There's no EV mode at all though, is it?

Is it like a 911 GTST hybrid?

There's no electric.

It will be able to drive under electric power alone

but it'll be for quite a limited range.

Is that in front wheel drive?

That's right.

It becomes front wheel drive in a year

and when you reverse it's front wheel drive

because there's no reverse gear in the gearbox

that uses the front motors to drive

but that will be fairly minimal.

They couldn't give a figure on the day

because they're still waiting for homologation

for the final figures.

So it's got an SF90-ish in that respect then, isn't it?

Yeah.

Well, that's...

Yeah, it's a car.

I mean, it's a limited exposure

but where do you think that car sits?

Because it's $850, there's no confirmed price

but it's sort of a million-dollar car

which puts it in that weird space, doesn't it?

Which is SF90 Ferrari but more than that,

but FS90-XX but that sounds more extreme than the Valhalla

but it's more than the...

Both of those cars are more than a Revioto, Revioto.

Yeah.

But the Lambo's got similar sort of powertrain,

mid-engine concept.

Yeah, no physical link between the front

and the rear electric front axle.

But it felt kind of like nothing else I've really driven.

It really felt like its own thing.

It's quite a few years since I've driven an SF90

but I think maybe that's the most comparable car I've driven.

And it definitely has a track focus.

I think Aston Martin's playing on the F1 link,

both the real one in terms of the engineering team

being involved in making the car

but also the interior is deliberately quite sparse

and there's a lot of carbon fibre on show

and it definitely has a track focus

and it was very precise, very linear on the track,

very agile, but it's not like a Valkyrie

where you'd have to take a real deep breath

before doing it.

Yeah, it sounds like it still would be fun

rather than pure lap time.

Yes, it doesn't feel like just a track car.

It definitely, you could drive it to the shops

or you could do a grand tour in it.

You could drive it to Spa Ring or...

Yeah, I mean, I don't know where you'd put your luggage.

Luggage space is a bit...

Well, they're all a bit like that, aren't they?

I mean, Revioto's got a bit of front space,

this has got some kind of bins behind the door,

so it's got these really wide opening...

It's on the style, kind of like...

Yeah, kind of all my side, tanks in the way.

Is there anywhere to stick a crash helmet?

Not that I've...

Just drive there with it on.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, suit it and boot it.

Or if that sounds like it, you're gonna have to.

Maybe you'll have a butler in a DBX.

Maybe you'll have it, yeah, you'll set it on or...

But it was really fun to drive

and also, Aston Martin, we're very keen

that I switch all the systems off to see what it's like

with no driver aids and it's really drivable

and for such a powerful, potent car,

you really can sort of grab it by the scruff of the neck

and lob it about.

It's a bit more approachable than a...

Like, Revioto, you can do it, but it is a bit like...

I'll have to be prepared.

Just a chainsaw or something.

I wonder if that's the big way to the V12 behind you.

Yeah, it could be, couldn't it?

I think there's a little bit of that in it.

Well, that's quite interesting.

This felt very balanced.

But as modern Aston's have been the way they're set up,

they are...

You turn the driver aids off or to whatever setting

you feel comfortable with, but it's...

You never feel intimidated by them.

They're always...

They're quite friendly.

They're being set up to work with you

rather than trying to...

I think they try and release as much performance

as you feel comfortable.

And so with...

It's like a bit umpteen stage traction

and like drift mode, isn't it?

Yeah, there's 10 stages and it's the same as the Vantage.

So it's common to those, yeah.

Yeah, it's the same layout as the Vantage

in terms of how you...

So I think they're trying to open it up, aren't they?

Rather than make it too intimidating.

And there's also two tyres you can choose.

So if you are going to do track stuff.

And I think later we will get the chance to drive it

on a bigger track so we can feel the downforce.

It has 600 kilos of downforce, I think,

towards its top speed and stopping the track it is.

This is more about mechanical grip.

So you can have cup two R tyres and magnesium wheels

if you're a track goer.

Or you can have pilot sport five tyres

and forged aluminium wheels if you're not.

I mean, and the tyres I've bespoke to the car.

So they've got the AML markings

and the BFL.

Yeah, they all are now, aren't they?

Yeah, that's not a cheap programme to do.

But I guess you have to do it with anything.

Yes.

Whether it's advanced level as well.

And upwards, don't you?

As you say, the price, the expectation,

but also the performance,

otherwise it's just every car is hampered by its tyres.

Did they give you any performance figures and weights?

Yeah, only a dry weight, so...

Useful.

I often dine the fluids out of the car by driving it.

It's a bit like weighing yourself without blood, isn't it?

Yeah.

Not tried that yet.

But your dear end car companies

stop providing dry weights, they are pointless.

It just makes us more cynical than we already are.

Yeah.

Your car weighs too much.

Well, it's 1655 kilograms dry.

That's 1,900 kilos, isn't it?

Probably.

You can normally add a swed, isn't it?

It used to be about 100 kilos, but now with car-spin...

I think with all the cooling that's required

and you've got a battery that needs cooling in it,

if it's a small battery...

Yeah, you can add more.

You can add more and more.

And it's carbon-tub,

but there's still crash structures in there.

There's bigger brakes, bigger suspension components.

Yeah.

Everything to make the aero work.

There's a lot of...

Yeah.

It doesn't feel like it sounds...

It doesn't sound like it feels as heavy as...

No, it's very, very nimble.

Like, it's got a really positive front end,

but without feeling sort of nervous or darty.

It's a really linear car.

I think it's what we're finding, isn't it?

Most of these cars, you look at the curb weight,

dry weight, whichever weight they've quoted,

and you sort of think, oh, really?

But actually, when you almost have to just drive it

and not worry about the weight,

whatever it is, don't you, but bizarre?

And actually, it's all comparisons.

It's like the M5.

We all know it weighs more than a three-bed semi,

but actually, when you drive it, you will not...

That isn't the thing that...

Two-bed semi.

Yeah, yeah.

With a concierge.

Yeah.

But it's not the thing that defines how it drives.

Yeah.

It's the mass.

Yeah.

But that's sort of the tech that goes into it,

and you kind of think, well...

I mean, everything would feel better

if it was 13-hundred kilos.

But then sometimes, with these hybrid cars,

like Ravuelta, which we've driven, you haven't driven to shoot...

I'm not allowed out of the office.

Yeah, yeah.

The torque vectoring in the hybrid stuff

actually helps it feel lighter in a weird way.

So if you took all of that out,

yes, it would be lighter,

but then maybe you wouldn't feel as light.

It might feel more like an Aventador or something.

Yeah, exactly.

Did it feel like that, do you think?

Did it feel like the hybrid was adding something to this experience?

Yeah.

I mean, definitely having the front axle

engaged, even though they really wanted it to feel

like a rear-driven car, not a four-wheel-drive one,

so it doesn't dominate the experience.

But it's quite cool.

I felt this particularly in the passenger seat

with Darren Turner driving,

but a little bit when I was driving it as well,

if you do have everything switched off,

you come out of a corner with the rear-end sliding a bit,

you still have the feeling of being driven forwards

because the front hooks up and keeps the momentum up.

Nice.

I think the one thing I felt it was maybe missing,

and it's hard to make adjustment to this

on a closed test track wearing a crash helmet,

but I wonder if it might need a bit more kind of shock

and awe, like more sound, more,

and the acceleration is really quick

and getting into fifth gear, even at stow,

which is not a big track.

So no doubt it does the numbers,

but I wonder if people who are going to drop a million

dollars on a hypercar might want it to feel more intense.

I wonder if this is almost too good in a way,

because it's so linear and so well-managed

the way it delivers its power.

I wonder if people will want it to feel more wild

and dramatic.

Because of Welter it does feel like that, doesn't it?

It does.

It's got a lot of drama of, say, a Huracanastio

or something.

It's got that sort of theatre.

It needs that thump and theatre

to make you realise that you've stepped up a mode.

Yeah.

It'd be interesting to see how other people react to it,

though, wouldn't it?

Like whenever you drive any other Aston Martin,

you get a lot of attention, don't you?

Generally, it's more often not as positive attention

and they're just like really excited to see it.

Whether it's a Vantage or a Valkyrie,

which I wonder if this maybe, you know,

it doesn't have a V12 in it.

So it's not quite like the Lambo,

but perhaps just because it's something different

and it is relatable to a Valkyrie,

but it's something that people haven't seen before.

I think maybe that's going to be part of its appeal

is it's a genuinely new player in that area

of the market, isn't it?

But I think when we drive it on the road,

that's almost part of the test, isn't it?

To see how people respond to it.

Yeah, I mean, there's will be...

So as Aston Martin's always seemed to be positive reactions.

There's a...

More so than...

You generally get people,

like if you're pulling out with petrol or something,

someone will stop and even if it's like a nice one or...

And people let you out of junctions and things,

which they don't always...

Because they're not super flash, are they?

You don't always get that with a Ferrari or Lamborghini.

It's that refinement to the design that they've...

They're quite aggressive.

You've obviously put up...

The current cars have got a lot of aggressive detailing,

but actually the shape is all very quite soft and nice.

You read it as one form, don't you?

Yeah, it's not jarring without on...

Valhalla's pretty curvy, isn't it, actually?

They still manage to get quite a lot of that form

into a shape that's traditionally quite sharp.

And in your default driving mode,

the wing sinks and fits almost flush with the body.

But then it does stand out like a Chappelle or something.

It's quite a weird combination, isn't it?

Because the Aero is more not quite as extreme as a F80,

but it presents like that, doesn't it?

When all the wings are out and everything's sort of switched on.

And yeah, it's very elegant and quite discreet

from the images I've seen of the car.

Yeah, I think it's a really attractive car.

This was sort of camouflaged.

It had sort of graphics on it to break up the shape

with it being a prototype.

But it's got really nice presence.

Yeah, I've seen a couple on the road actually coming out of stone.

Oh, OK. Yeah.

Undisguised. Yeah.

They revealed the car anyway, so there's no secret to it.

Yeah, they had to display it Le Mans.

And it is a very striking design.

It's interesting, it still looks like...

And I had it at Goodwood.

It still looks like an Aston Martin.

It could only be an Aston Martin.

It doesn't have that generic super straight

hypercar mid-engine shape,

which I guess is why the aero is important,

but it hasn't dominated the design.

That's often what happens, isn't it?

The design becomes fixed

because where you want this much downfall,

so well, you're going to have it,

it's going to look like this.

It does look very distinct, and it's its own thing.

It's not trying to be something else.

It's very...

It'd be interesting in dealers,

it's not this kind of thing,

there's going to be loads of them lined up,

but to suddenly have that car in an Aston Martin dealership

where a Ferrari dealership or a Lamborghini dealership

or McLaren or they all have lots of mid-engine choices,

but they don't have any of the other stuff.

I wonder if that might help them get attention

from people that otherwise aren't,

they just almost don't register with a Vantage

or a vanquish.

It's going to be with, they are going toe for toe

with Ferrari, aren't they?

They're going to have, it's a Malfi now, isn't it?

Robert Ramert, 12-cylinder,

and then they've got Pure Sangway and DVX,

and then you've got Valhalla,

which puts them into that mid-engine space,

very top-end, it's for Thrasen to go into,

but it's probably, you either do it one of two ways,

don't you?

You either go in at the very top

and then you'll have model lines come off that

at a lower price point,

or you go in at a lower price point

and try and build up all the time.

Yeah, it's not always been that joined up,

has it with Aston,

but they've got their equivalent of the Icona series

which they've done for a long time, haven't they?

Yes, they have a Speedster and things like that.

Yeah, and Victor and Valhalla and all those cars

that they've not quietly got on with it,

but they've just been doing that,

but it's not necessarily been as joined up

as Ferrari's plans,

but they have all the pieces of the puzzle, don't they?

They do now, yeah.

They just need to put them all together.

Get people in, but then it's,

Aston Martin has its troubles,

which are sort of being a public company

that are quite open, aren't they?

But everyone in that market is struggling.

I think they all have, don't they?

Everyone, I know we keep returning to this,

but it's such a volatile time,

and it seems to flip.

So even the companies that have made billions and billions

in profit and been investing billions and billions

in future models, suddenly it just seems

to get very ugly very quickly, doesn't it?

Yeah, but hopefully it's,

they can only do what they need to do,

which is, yeah, they will keep making the best cars

they can make and hope something sticks, don't they, really?

But you'd have to think Formula One,

did you not drive the safety car and medical car?

Yes. Was that the same thing?

That was also at Stowe's, it wasn't the same day,

but yeah, which was really fun.

Maybe we should chat about that on our future podcast,

because they were both really fun cars to drive.

We'll save that for the next one.

But yeah, I think back when, back in 2019,

when, as you say, the Baha moment of all cars,

there was a lot of debate, generally,

you know, should Aston Martin do a supercar,

why are they doing a mid-engine supercar?

And some people would argue, yes, it makes sense,

others would be like, well, it doesn't make sense

for that brand, but I think now

with a successful F1 team, with Valkyrie

having set out the store for them,

albeit in a very specialized way,

it feels like it fits the brand

that's great to see that.

But yeah, you've got, and also you do have to build

the cars that there are customers for.

If you stick to religiously too,

well, we're just going to build front-engined GT

and super GTs, and that's lovely,

and you produce a fantastic family of cars.

But that only appeals to those

that want the front-engined car.

There's a next generation that only want mid-engine cars.

You're only just touched on it.

You only need to look at Lamborghini's figures

to see that they build an SUV, but is their cash cow,

but then outgoing, hurricane, and a vented door,

and everything else flew, and all the new stuff.

Yeah, and now they've got a fully electrified

new range of cars, haven't they?

Yeah, and they will fly out in the showroom,

so the mid-engine stuff is possibly,

maybe what Aston was lacking.

It sounds like, as they have done

with all of their most recent product,

probably since Andy Palmer took control

of having that focused on the strategy,

and they've stuck to it, whether they've delivered it

on when they were meant to deliver it,

but that's for obvious reasons,

but they do now have that, you know,

there's nothing else you could throw at them

and say, well, you haven't got one of these,

so I'm not going to buy one.

I think Felicia did the unsexy stuff,

didn't she, there was all the promise,

and then none of the promise was actually realized,

and then he said to come in there

and make sense of it all

and try and facilitate those cars being developed.

I mean, they've had such a tough time, haven't they,

from those veterans, from a few veterans from Valkyrie

that were left, that aren't dribbling in a court

somewhere, and then they've gone straight from that

to a DB12 and Vantage and Vanquish and Valhalla,

and it's just been relentless, I think, for them,

but I think that you look at the model portfolio now.

It's really strong.

It's a really sexy range of cars, isn't it?

I imagine when a Valhalla is a next safety car,

which, let's be honest, it will be,

why would you have a mid-engine supercar

in your portfolio and not have it?

That'd be pretty cool if it was, wouldn't it?

Yeah, it'd be great.

I bet the drivers will be happy about it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It'll be a bit quicker.

Easy to keep an entire tent.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Exactly, but that's because then you're just putting

your star car in front of a huge audience.

It's an amazing shop window, isn't it?

To have anything to do with Formula One,

a race team and half the races

for your safety car and medical car.

Yeah, and to have a Vantage is cool.

We'll get onto the safety car and another one.

But I think...

And the medical car, too, the DBX,

which was really fun, anyway.

But I think if you have Valhalla as the car

at the front of the grid, will be a cool thing.

And if you think of all the other hypercars

that have been gone, coming,

and been forgotten about AMG-1,

then don't remember that.

But...

And it's just to think that position that they're in,

you've still delivered,

they have still delivered this car

that is completely against anything else.

You know, it's clean sheet of paper.

Yes, okay, the engine is off the shelf,

but it's to their specs.

It doesn't sound like there's a huge amount

of compromising in this stuff.

So hopefully it does what it needs to do.

When do they hint at when we'll get a finished car?

Probably towards the end of the year.

So maybe in a hotter country.

I'm probably on track.

I am.

Bedford.

He's quite over here today.

Yeah, Bedford also actually.

Yeah, well, this ticks all the boxes, doesn't it?

Yeah, I'm looking forward to that, hopefully.

Sounds like it's...

I mean, it's been a long, long project, hasn't it?

But you'd rather they get it right.

Yeah, it started and stopped a couple of times, doesn't it?

Yeah, that would be interesting.

That would be a good one to drive.

I can see three people here talking to their hands in the ring.

I think I'm free for whatever it is.

I'll check those dates and you'll be shaving your head against me.

Yeah, yeah, that's it.

Yeah, it's truly compelling.

Yeah, I think it's really interesting.

Sounds it.

Good, looks it.

Sounds good.

Shall we end that one on there before we all pass out?

Yeah, it's getting quite hot.

Yeah, it's nice to have these lights on.

So thank you very much.

But we are going to do a Q&A.

I know we said this 20 episodes ago, I think.

I've finally got the web...

We've finally got an email address.

Yeah, taking us this long to get an email address.

So podcast.evo.co.uk.

So any questions, we'll read them out and try and answer them.

I'll read them out and someone else can try and answer them.

I think will be the best thing.

Youssef, James, Dickey, thank you very much.

Thanks to you. Thanks, everyone, for joining.

And we'll see you next time.

Cheers.

Thank you.

Aston Martin Valhalla: has the 1064bhp hypercar been worth the wait? | The evo podcast | Episode 26

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