Is the dust settling around the Aston Martin Valkyrie and Mercedes-AMG One? I can’t find any tester who unreservedly likes either. Full disclosure, I haven’t driven them – frankly I don’t have the skills to take full advantage of any car so fast. I’ll leave it to the hotshoes, including our own Chris Harris and Ollie Marriage. But, ahem, I seem to be skilled at predicting the future. For years I’ve been saying they’d never work. In July 2018 I wrote, “They’re ‘road cars’ in the sense of road legal, but severely compromised as such by their track mission. Equally the track car bit will be undermined by the need to do speed bumps and emissions tests".
Two years before, in 2016, I’d interviewed Adrian Newey, Red Bull Racing’s tech chief who led the Valkyrie project before departing, and Marek Reichman, Aston Martin’s head of design. They said there’d be a track version, and it would be very similar to the road one, except for aero and tyres and chassis set-up. “We don’t have time to do two cars,” Reichman said.
In the end they absolutely did do two cars – the AMR Pro having a longer wheelbase and bigger monocoque. Critically, it ditches the hybrid powertrain, active aero and hydraulic active suspension. Saving itself a huge 300kg. Chris Harris says the AMR Pro is “one of the most special cars I’ve had the pleasure to drive”. He said, as I’d predicted, that losing those complications necessary to make it work as a road car are exactly what made it better.
The AMG One suffers...
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