Progressive is an insurance company. They help drivers get car insurance quotes, and they’re advertising a tool that helps you choose a price and coverage level.
Anderson makes home charging equipment for electric cars. They’re saying they help you through the whole setup process and provide a premium charging experience.
Home EV chargers are the devices you install at your house to charge an electric car. They help you charge conveniently overnight or whenever you need it.
The Aston Martin DBX is an SUV, but Aston tries to make it feel sporty and luxurious. In the conversation, it’s used as an example of Aston’s “GT-ish” approach even outside a traditional coupe.
The Aston Martin Valkyrie is a super rare, track-inspired Aston. It’s the kind of car that’s more about racing technology and drama than everyday comfort.
When they say “race car influence,” they mean the car is built with racing in mind. That usually makes it more exciting, but it can also be less comfortable and less forgiving than a normal road car.
A carbon fiber tub is the main structural body section made from carbon fiber. It helps the car be strong and light, which improves performance and handling.
Le Mans prototypes are purpose-built race cars designed for endurance racing at Le Mans. The speaker uses them as an example of seating/ergonomics—feet raised and a low, forward driving posture—to create a sporty, race-like sensation.
Ferrari is a famous Italian maker of high-end supercars. Here it’s mentioned as an example of another brand that has done something similar in its lineup.
Hybrid technology combines an internal combustion engine with an electric motor and battery system to improve efficiency and/or performance. The hosts are discussing how a “simpler” Aston Martin without as much hybrid complexity could be offered at a lower price in the future.
The Aston Martin Valhalla is a very expensive, special Aston Martin supercar. The hosts are saying it helps the brand make more money per car because it costs far more than their usual models.
A turbocharger is a device that helps an engine make more power. It uses exhaust gas to spin a turbine, which then compresses air so the engine can burn more fuel.
Concept
EVs don't emit exhaust gases
Gas cars have exhaust that can spin a turbo. Electric cars make power with electricity, so they don’t have that exhaust flow.
A supercharger is another form of forced induction, but it’s driven mechanically (typically by a belt or gears) rather than by exhaust gas. That often gives earlier boost response compared with many turbo setups, though it can consume engine power to run.
Riding composure is how smooth and controlled the car feels over rough roads. A car with good composure doesn’t feel like it’s constantly reacting to every bump.
NASA is a U.S. government organization known for space, but it also works on aircraft technology. In this segment, they’re trying to make supersonic flight less disruptive.
Supersonic cruise means flying faster than sound. Because the air behaves differently at those speeds, the airplane may use fuel differently than when it’s going slower.
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Hello, and welcome to a bonus episode of the AutoCar Podcast.
Not my weekend cars, not auto car meets, not meets auto car, it's Steve Cropley, hello
a little other nonsense for a weekend morning, but like our regular podcast, it's brought
to you in association with Anderson, makers of design-focused premium home EV chargers.
Go visit Anderson-EV.com, just search Anderson, and they've got a concierge service who will
look after you all the way through.
And some very nice chargers.
Steve, we're going to talk some questions, but also we sort of finished Wednesday's pod,
not having talked about the Aston Valhalla.
Yeah, that's my question.
Your question to me is what?
What is the mad Aston like?
It's very, very good, mate.
The reason I am so keen to know is because I read your story on it, and I'm used to cars
like that, ridiculous price tags and all that, being a bit difficult to drive and own and
understand, and you said it was fun.
Well, that's the thing that they were quite keen to do is that they say, and they use this
word, one, a breathability, which means they like their cars to ride, and they make GT cars,
don't they?
Yeah.
They make sport, they make GT sports cars, front-engine, two-seat, four-seat.
Even the DBX has a, you know, it's a sort of sporty GT-ish.
Oh, yeah.
And I didn't want to lose all of that, even though they were making a mid-engined,
their first sort of series mid-engined production car, because I made the...
Valkyrie.
Thank you.
Yeah.
They made the Valkyrie, because there's only 200 and whatever of them, and they're all
tremendously difficult to drive and not really a...
Fair to say, not really a true Aston Martin.
No, no, no, more a racing car, isn't it?
Yeah.
There was lots of race car influence.
Yeah.
This is the car where they, they can bring, as I understand it, they can bring their values
to a mid-engined car.
That's what they said, yeah.
And they call it sort of son of Valkyrie, as they call it, but they're making a thousand
of them over the next couple of years, if they can sell them all.
And they're meant to feel like an Aston Martin feels.
So it does ride quite comfortably, really, you know, really quite comfortably,
for a car that's very low and very focused.
Is it a steel suspension or...
So it's got a carbon fiber tub with aluminium subframes front and rear,
and then it's coil sprung, but at the front, particularly, what they wanted was a low driving
position.
I think that's what I quite like about it, is that the nice thing from our point of view
is they put on a lot of experts to explain what's going on.
So they say, look, we want a low driving position with your feet raised high,
as you would in a Le Mans prototype, for example, so that it feels really sporty and
racy, but it's got a wide windscreen aperture, and although it's carbon-tubbed and has
thick A-pillars, the thickness is angled away from you.
So the thickness is in depth.
So when you're looking at them, so they're not thick in your view, they're thick in depth.
And then you would look out over a low scuttle, and then so that you can see the front wings,
so that you can help place the car, because although it's a big wide car, we want you to be
able to drive it down the road and be able to place the edges, so you can see the front wings.
The only way to sit you low enough, with the scuttle low enough and the wings high enough,
to be able to do that, is to, because it has electric motors at the front, so it's got an
electric motor on each front wheel, it's mid-engined and has an electric motor in the gearbox.
Because you've got drive shafts going from the motors to the front wheels, if you mounted the
suspension, the coil-overs directly on top of that, you'd have to mount them on the wheel hub
above the drive shafts, which means they would protrude straight up into the driver's vision.
So they've got push rods instead, and that keeps the front section in front of the drive
much lower. So it's got these Bilstein DTX, I think, coil-over units, and they sit horizontal,
just in front of the windscreen, and you can see them and they look cool.
Well, as you see them moving, do you?
Well, from outside you can see them, I think from inside you probably couldn't,
you probably couldn't see them, but as in standing outside they've left them part exposed,
which is quite cool. And then at the rear it's got five link suspension, I think, with these coil-overs,
but they're not push rod or pull rod, they're just upright as they would be. They didn't want any
scoops in the top half of the bodywork because they didn't like the look of it, so they've got
scoops in the bottom half of the bodywork, and then above your head at the top of the
cabin, there's an air scoop which feeds the engine through the middle, and then at each edge there's
a bit that feeds into coolers and coolers and stuff like that. So it's designed in a really
careful, thoughtful sort of way. And they said, not massively, no, I think because
the visibility is quite good, and the mirrors are quite decent sized as well, so it doesn't feel
that bad, and it doesn't feel that unwieldy, and we were going to head out onto some
roads which are not bad roads, but not super, super silky smooth roads. And they said, look,
on this route we've kind of planned, which you can take if you like, because there's a
photographer halfway along it, which may be helpful for you. There are some speed ramps as it goes
through villages, you won't need to use the suspension lift on any of them, and that's
unusual. And that's nice, because I don't love super cars. Now you've, we've had you on a nose
lift before. Yeah, exactly, because I don't, you put a nose lift on, like, oh good, it's got a
nose lift, but I think, well now it's my problem. Yes, yeah. And now suddenly it's my responsibility
to not hit the nose, whereas if you just designed it to be a bit higher in the first place, I wouldn't
have to worry about it. This runs reasonably low, but not awfully, but also what they've done is
it's got active aero front and rear, so it's got a hidden wing that you can't see under,
in the underbody at the front, and then it's got a big wing on the back, which you can see.
And it makes increasing amounts of downforce until it gets to
100 and something miles an hour, about 600 kilos, but then it levels off the downforce. It doesn't,
the faster you go, they reduce the wing angle, so that it makes no more downforce above those
speeds. And the plan with that is that you don't have to have really stiff suspension
to fight against the downforce, whereas if you have a car that makes loads and loads and loads
of downforce, and more and more and more and more and more, you have to have suspension that can
cope with, yeah, you have to have suspension that can cope with 1500 kilos at 200 miles an hour.
This bleeds off the wings, so only ever make 600 kilos, that is a good idea. I'm all for that,
because 600 kilos, 1000 kilos, it's a road car. If you really wanted to, all right, it's a road
slash track car, but it's not a racing car, do you know what I mean? If you really wanted to
make that much downforce on a track, buy a track car, buy something. Well, they'll come up with
one later anyway. Yeah, maybe there'll be a, yeah, that's interesting, maybe there will be a
track version. Yeah. I thought about that. We should run a story on that. It's bound to
become a big one, isn't it? Get Benny to draw it, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and it's just,
and it's really playful to drive. I mean, it was wet when I was out there, which is not hugely
helpful, but it, you could tell. Where were you? Was this a, a socket? Yeah, Palmer's place,
Napal, is that right? Oh, okay, it's okay, yeah, yeah. In northern Spain, John,
yes, the Palmer Sport facility in northern Spain. Is it good? Yeah, it's great. It feels a bit like
Port Amal circuit in the layout. It's very, very simple. He's done it up a lot, hasn't he? Yeah,
very much so. I mean, he's changed, he's moved hundreds of tons of earth to reprofile bands and
things like that. Yeah, they've reprofiled quite a lot of corners and things like that. So the
grip level is slightly changeable in the wet because there are bits of new tarmac where it's
been reprofiled. And they can get quite slippy compared to the old asphalt, but no, it's a
really interesting layout and a really good fun layout. And the car is great. What's the sound like?
I don't mind it, but it's not as exciting as a crossplane crank VA, it's a flatplane crank VA
in the AMG Black Series. It's an AMG GT Black Series engine tweaked further, but it's,
it's got sort of bigger turbos, so it would have more turbo lag, but it doesn't matter because
there's a motor in the gearbox to torque fill for the incident throttle response. I don't,
I don't mind it. It's not the most exciting supercar noise in the world. So it's not a feature?
No, but it's not bad. It's not, it's not unpleasant, but it's just not quite as,
it doesn't sound bad. When you, when you sort of going through towns and things, is it just doing
it on electric then or? You can do it. You can run it in full EV in which case it's kind of driving
on the front motors. And then reverse gear is, there is no reverse gear, it's driving, it's driving
on the motor, it's reverses on the motors, which makes the gearbox lighter. And then they've done
some torque stuff. So they've got a motor attached to one of the, it's got dual clutch gearbox.
The motor is attached to the, to the, to the shaft, the, to the clutch and the shaft, the
gear set that run the even gears only. So, and this is what I cut. This is where I can't work
it out. Because you can be in third gear. The electric motor can be torque filling.
And yet it is somehow attached not to the, the gear that the engine is driving through,
it's attached to a different gear. And I still can't, I need to see it. I need to see it.
I need a diagram of it because I still can't quite get my, I still can't quite get my head
around that. I'm still, I'm, I'm still in the, in the era of getting used to torque filling,
you know, just the idea of having this thing sort of go whoop, and just give you a little
boost when you need it. A little boost while the engine's still warming up. Yeah. And also they can
so it can, so you put your foot down at low revs and instead of turbo lag, the, the motor kicks in
to, you know, and that's where the torque fill is. But that motor, when you're slowing,
can also help drag the engine down in speed and increase engine braking. And while it does that,
it's charging its battery. You can use a certain amount of throttle. And if you're asking for more
power than traction can provide, the motor will act as a traction control system and slow the
engine. And as it's doing that, charge the battery. But then as you're making downshifts,
so you're coming down the gearbox, the motor can flick the engine around the rev band to match gears
much more quickly than it otherwise would be able to either. So it's really clever the way
they do this stuff. And it just makes you into a hero too, don't it? Yeah, you feel much better
because you, you know, you're doing these downshifts and you feel great. Where does it fit the
range? What is it? So it's not a cheap car? No, it's 850 grand, pretty much. And it's, yes, yeah,
it sits at the top of the range. But I think they like, and I said, look, why would it not be just
a serious production car? Well, because then you, if we make a thousand, it's not quite limited,
but it's not quite serious. But we don't, if it was just, there were as many as you could sell.
They couldn't charge 850 grand for them. I see, I see. But if they were only 300,
you'd have to charge three million for them. Of course, they can't, I suppose, or whatever.
They won't do that. But so this is where it sits in the range. But I said, look, do you like
having a mid-engine car in the range now? You know, is there a feeling in the company that,
I know you're not going to tell me if you're going to make another mid-engine car,
but does it feel right? And they said, well, students, interesting things about it is
half of all the buyers have never had an Aston Martin before. Two-thirds of the buyers in Europe
have never had an Aston Martin before. So it's really broadened the appeal of the range. We know
people like the idea of Aston Martins, but maybe they've never been offered one that they really
liked before. Yeah, interesting. And as they say, nobody has told us we shouldn't have one.
No. Well, Ferrari and Maserati have both had both things at once, haven't they? They've had front
engine and rear and mid-engine. Yeah, so I think, I think a... It felt like an Aston to you. It felt
like an Aston to me, and I could see how maybe a simpler one without all of the hybrid technology
on it could certainly be a car in the Aston range for less money in future, or maybe another one
again, which has got all the hybrid tech, if it has to. It could well be. Yeah, it could well be.
I could see. Sounds good. And they were sort of... Because, you know, they lose quite a lot of money.
Yeah. They were saying, actually, that the gap between losing money and making money is not
as huge as it might appear, because they sold about five and a half thousand cars last year.
Yeah. And they said that actually six and a half to seven thousand cars, including some specials,
things like that, that becomes a viable business. Yeah. It becomes a decent business.
I must say, it's just that they owe such a lot of money. Yeah. We've sort of done the sums,
haven't we, in the past, and discovered that, you know, a thousand expensive cars is a huge
improvement to the bottom line here in these low volume companies. Yeah. And that's the thing.
It's the two things. It's like, one, we need to sell some more cars. Two, we need to increase the
transaction price. Yeah. And the Valhalla has helped with that, because I think the average
transaction price was 220,000 pounds last year. Okay. But the Valhalla, of course, is 800 grand.
So, and they're going to do 500 of them this year-ish. They've got an order bank.
They've got an order bank. They've sold, delivered 200 already. And they have an order bank that
takes them pretty much through the end of this year. So they've still got some to sell.
That must feel good, though. You know, to have had that many out to door, that's
a special reason. Yeah. But I would, I don't know, I don't know at what point.
I imagine they'll want to sell them all for it to have done what they want it to do.
But yeah, they're, I mean, it's difficult for them at the minute, I think, you know.
But by the sound of things, at least a bit of room for optimism.
A bit more than we've seen recently. Yes, sure. Yeah. Anyway, Steve and I were going to read
your questions. Well, thanks. On the turbocharger front, AutoCar at Haymarket.com, if you do want
to write to us, Bernard Honerman has written to say, maybe you can help me understand the Porsche
turbo in an electric car. Since electric engines don't emit exhaust gases, those due to their
non-existent nature cannot be used to power a turbocharger. The only potential source for
reusable gases for a turbo would therefore be driver slash passenger flat insurance.
Has Porsche come up with some clever mechanism to collect methane from the seats and power some
energy conversion gadget? Since I refuse to believe that Porsche marketing people are pure
bred protagonists, there has to be a technical explanation of what this turbo is and does.
So far, no one can enlighten me. Maybe you can. Bernard, Porsche electric turbos.
Why do they do that, Steve? Because turbo has been a very effective badge for them in the past,
and they just want to keep on using it. I think it's, if they thought dual ignition would work
as a badge on the back, they'd put that there too. The Porsche McCartn twin spark.
That's the short of it. But you can buy turbo everything, can't you? You can get a turbo
vacuum cleaner and all kinds of things of turbo written on them that are not turbo.
And supercharger too. There's another, I mean a supercharger as, you know, in Tesla language
is nothing to do with a compressor. Yeah. Let's see if anybody sells a turbo toaster.
A turbo toaster is a high speed appliance such as the Kenwood turbo. So yeah, there you go.
You've done it. Produced toaster in 60 seconds, according to the internet.
The Severin 802513 turbo toaster. You can put turbo on anything you like. Yeah.
Basically, I think that's the short of it. You can feel the green lobby objecting to a toaster
that uses so much grunt that it giddled toaster piece of bread in 10 seconds. Yeah, exactly.
The showery turbo shower head. There's no end. I reckon name a domestic appliance,
and somebody will put turbo on it. Yeah, there'll be a head on it. It's just become
slang, hasn't it? It's become a thing. Yeah. One of those catch all words. Who invented the turbo
charger? Oh, it goes a long way back, I'd say. I don't know. No, I don't know. But I'll bet you
it goes a long way back. Yeah. Jeremy Borland writes to us on the subject of the Porsche Macan
and says, I've been interested to read not just your recent coverage, but wider of the views of
the Macan Electric, many of which suggest the four and four S are the more resolved cars,
and even place alternatives such as the new BMW IX3 ahead on riding composure as a Macan turbo
driver without a turbo. I initially agreed in normal mode, particularly with the rear wheel
steering, the car can feel unsettled on typical UK roads, fidgety enough that I question my choice.
However, switching to sport mode transforms it completely. The suspension settles, the rear
steering integrates properly, and the car becomes cohesive, precise, and genuinely impressive. It
feels like an entirely different vehicle. What surprised me is how little emphasis seems to have
been placed on this in reviews, judged in normal criticism fare. But in sport, the turbo reveals
a level of capability that puts it on a very different footing altogether. For a vehicle of its
size and type, the combination of composure and performance, not least its extraordinary acceleration,
is really remarkable. Yeah. I worry if its character is being missed. That is interesting,
isn't it? Yes, and quite plausible, isn't it? Because we find quite often that something
that is taught, even the humble example of my recently departed Ford Capri,
that in the sport settings it was just better. Oh, was it? Yeah. And no less comfortable.
No, well, not really. I found it on a couple of, I can't remember where I first wrote about it,
but there was a particular car that I switched from normal or comfort into sport,
and although the movements were shorter, they were no less rounded, you know, over bumps,
and it just became a better car. Yeah. And I do, maybe it was in a, it might have been a Taycan.
Yeah. But anyway, yeah, there have been a few, Jeremy, and if our review
does not say that enough, then we'll revisit. The thing that Jeremy is
showing us, we've learned a lot from, you know, readers who understand
quite potent cars and own and drive them, is that there is no substitute for fairly long
experiences. You know, if you, it's just as likely that his impressions will be better
than ours. Yeah. Because he knows, you know, what he's talking about. Yeah, lives with it day to day.
So well done, Jeremy. Yes, thanks for the note. Tony Martin writes,
it's just a bit of trumpet blowing this one, Steve. Listen to your podcast with Rob Dickinson of
Singer Vehicle Design, which you can find elsewhere on this channel, says it's truly
uplifting and captivating to listen to what a genuine self-effacing and great guy is. Someone
clearly having a ball. Your question is true. What makes Rob tick? Well done. Without getting too
philosophical, on occasion, we all get a bit fed up. I will have this pod to hand to inject a bit of
feel good factor, should that need arise. And I also loved his pretty frequent use of the
third and ant word, all part of his makeup in my book. Yes, there was a little language in there,
which we don't usually put in our podcasts, but it's, I'm okay with it if you want. Yes. I mean,
a factor in the matter is he, it was part of him, wasn't it? He wasn't putting it on. No.
But the only thing that I said, I think I'll slightly take issue with that. Well,
two things. We really enjoyed it, didn't we? We did. Great time. I remember when he,
he departed to go and do some other good wood stuff. And we sort of sat there,
you know, rolling up wires and things, thinking how great he was. It was uplifting for us as well.
Yeah, very much so. And I've had another text, thanks Jeremy, today for some, from a friend of
us saying, you know, that was great. You should have him back on again. And I agree. I thought he
was terrific. Well, if he'd do it, I mean, he's coming over for the festival speed. Maybe we could
do him again. Yeah, because I don't, because I've not met him and I've not seen an interview with him.
I know a bit, know a bit about him, but what struck me is how sort of a proper carb guy here,
but of course he, I mean, of course he is. He designs this perfect air called 9-11. So of course
he's a carb like, but do you know what I mean? Oh, you're one of us. Yeah, you, you get it. Yeah.
You know, you could have a conversation about. Yeah. I don't know. And he was at no stage. Did he,
did he project or imply that what they were doing was perfect? In fact, he was the one thing I was
going to slightly disagree with Jeremy. Was it Jeremy? Tony. Tony. Tony. Sorry, Tony. Was that
that he was having a great time because he's a bit, he's a bit haunted by his, isn't he? By his,
you know, he just wants to do it better. However well he does it, he wants to do it better. Yeah,
maybe he's not having a great time. Maybe he's one of those, one of those footballers who doesn't
actually enjoy playing football until it's over. Yeah. Maybe he's, maybe he's like that.
Well, I think he, I think he, he is a restless pursuer of excellence, isn't he? Yeah. And I,
but that's, that's what we all enjoy, the restlessness because look at the results of God
knows. Yeah. You can, yes, that anyway, that, that interview is elsewhere. On this channel,
it was two weeks ago, I think, our bonus, or three weeks ago. I really enjoyed it. I hope we do it.
If you haven't listened to it too, yeah, do find the time because it's, because it's good fun.
Dave Campbell writes to say, I'm a bit behind the curve because my magazines arrive in Dublin
about a week or so late. I'm not sure that's unusual, Dave, but I'll apologies for that, but
that's, apologies for the post office trial. Yeah. Matt's article on March the 4th,
speed is good for you. Leave me with the impression he's been spending too much time with Clarkson.
Possibly not. I, no, I, I do think, I do, I do think speed is good for you. Yeah. I think speed
is good for the world. Actually, I think the faster we get places, the better we are. It's just
better. It's just, so I was on the internet the other day and I found a NASA project that they
are working on. They are trying to make supersonic flight without big supersonic booms. Therefore,
making supersonic flight over land feasible because I think you could never, Concord could never be
supersonic over the, over the mainland United States. Oh, they were very, very strict, weren't
they? Yeah. In fact, you had to be, I've just read a book on Concord by Mike Bannister, the,
the bloke that you can still go and sit next to in the, in the simulator at Brooklyn's. Oh,
really? But he did, he was the chief pilot for a long time and he was talking about how conservative
they were about sonic booms and it did limit the, the airplane's capabilities could have gone faster
for longer. Yeah. Was he quoted as the driver in the auto car Christmas road test when it was
Concord, I wonder, because there would have been a pilot in view for that. I wonder whether that
was him. There was a guy called, well, let's have a look. Well, let's have a look while you're
thinking. I will search Concord road test. And what I can tell you is that is the 2003 issue of
Auto Car Road Test number 4627. Brian Trubshaw. BAC, Aeros, Basel, Concord. Yeah. No, not,
well, no, it doesn't say Brian here. Forget Ferrari, blow Bentley. For the past 27 years,
there's been nothing to touch Concord as the Supreme Motor Transport. But before it bowed out
last month, author Tim Orchard, Concord pilot, gave it one final test, the Auto Car Christmas
Road Test, 2003. That was if you go to themagazineshop.com or you check the show notes for this episode,
you can subscribe to the Auto Car's entire back catalogue, all 131 years of it, including,
including the Concord Christmas Road Test. Did you ride that one? No, just before my time. Okay.
2005. And the Christmas Road Test that year was, I think, written by Ben Oliver. And that was
Rita Queen of Speed, the, the ride at Orton Towers. And I think Jamie Costoffin went up there with
the V-Box to be subjected to all the G forces and measure them on the measure them on our
V-Box offer. And I think I started, I think I started riding them in 2006.
What was it, your first one? I think it was the Leeper T282B mining truck, which was the
world's largest commercial mining truck at the time. And we drove to the gold mine in the middle
of Utah. And they showed us around it. But the thing is, they like, well, we can take it out of
service for a couple of photos. But the fact is, this truck operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a
year. One driver gets out of it and another one gets into it. And they fill it with fuel. And
then once a year, they would go off for an oil change or whatever. But basically, these things
cost so much money. And they make us so much money. It's not like we can take them out of
service for a day. No, and park it on a hill and walk around it a few times. But it was, but it
cost you 100 people, 250,000 horsepower. There's no pilot quoted. Yeah, Tim Orchard.
Oh, Tim Orchard. So his testers know, once you're used to how quickly things happen,
it's a joy. The machine responds like the finest thoroughbred racecar. And once known,
all the little vices can be easily tamed. Best fun you can get.
I love the stories about how it grows. In fact, I can remember being shown,
because it got hot and expanded. And when it was doing 15 on miles an hour, you could
put your hand between various pieces of trim. But when it was on the ground, you couldn't.
That's something, isn't it? Yeah. It uses fuel taxing on the ground that is greater than that
of a Boeing 777 at cruise. At takeoff power, the fuel burn is 90 tonnes per hour. And the
fuel tanks only hold 96 tonnes in total. Supersonic cruise, the rate drops to a mere 20 tonnes per
hour, which means that Concorde is relatively efficient at cruising speed. It uses 80 tonnes
of fuel to go from London to New York, while older Boeing 747s use around 75 tonnes.
Oh, that's interesting. Yes. The time saved by flying Concorde, along with a low stress,
lack of dehydration and jet lag, prove that you never get anything for nothing. But sometimes
in life, the price paid for the advantage is clearly worth it. 1960s technology, blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah. Yeah. The aircraft, despite this before, yeah, I think two things did for it,
didn't they? One was the crash that one had, the accident that one had. Yeah. And the second one
was the September 11th attacks. Yes. From that point onwards, it was unviable to run.
I love the notion. I still like to give it a go. Take off here at three o'clock and get over there,
you know, about one. Wouldn't it be brilliant, Steve? Seriously, wouldn't it be, wouldn't it be
fantastic to be able to, I don't know, go to Australia and it take eight hours rather than
a day? Do you know what I mean? I'll go to, yeah, and go to, literally go to New York and not.
Why, why shouldn't we do this stuff? Why shouldn't we be striving to do this? No reason. I mean, I'm
amazing. Speed is good. Speed is great for stuff. It helps, it helps us. What was the,
what was the central point that our mate was making here? And he was just saying, that was his,
that was the little testers note at the end. I see. But that was, yeah, which is, which, as we
still do, put testers notes, you know. No, the gentleman wrote to us in the letter. He said,
speed's good for you. Oh, sorry. Oh, no, he just said, do you agree? No, he said, prize been spending
too much time with Clarkson. Oh, because I said, speed is good for you. Speed is, speed is good
for you. Yeah. I mean, yeah, speed is fine. The faster things happen, the better. Yeah.
That brings us to the end of this weekend's bonus pod. Many thanks to our sponsor, Anderson.
Is it Anderson-EV.com for more? Thanks to you, Steve. See you later, mate. Thanks to you for
writing to us. Do auto-car at haymarket.com. Steve and I will be back on Wednesday. Cheers, mate.
Good stuff. Yeah.
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About this episode
A bonus Q&A-style chat mixes listener letters with a deep dive on Aston Martin’s Valhalla. Steve and the host unpack why the mid-engined, carbon-tub hypercar feels “breathable” and GT-like: push-rod front packaging, active aero that caps downforce, and a clever hybrid/dual-clutch torque-fill system. They also discuss Porsche’s “turbo” branding on EVs, Macan Electric ride modes, and praise for Rob Dickinson of Singer. The episode ends with a speed-and-Concorde nostalgia segment and sponsor reads.
In this bonus edition of the Autocar podcast, join Steve Cropley and Matt Prior as they bring you your letters, plus Prior reviews the Aston Martin Valhalla, they talk Sport modes, Singer, Concorde and more besides.
There's some talk of the archive and YOU CAN SUSBCRIBE to it too by taking advantage of the offer here.
