Arstechnica | Aston Martin designs a new V6 for James Bond—and the Valhalla hypercar

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  The Aston Martin Valhalla is the third and final car to emerge from a partnership between the car company and the Red Bull Racing F1 team. It will also be the cheapest, although that's a very relative term here. [credit: Jonathan Gitlin ]

It must be hard, being James Bond. Not only does he have to worry about secret plots and supervillains, but there's also the dilemma of what to drive. No Time to Die might be delayed now, but when it does finally come out, the film will be packed with Aston Martins, requiring 007 to make a choice of which one to drive, and when.

There's the classic DB5, now avec miniguns, as seen in the trailer. That's where we also got a glimpse of a DBS, reflecting the British carmaker's current range, as well as what looked a lot like a 1980s-era Vantage. That makes three, but in fact NTtD also reportedly features one of Aston Martin's future products. It's a brand-new mid-engined hybrid hypercar, developed in conjunction with legendary F1 aerodynamicist Adrian Newey.

But it's not the mid-engined hybrid Aston Martin hypercar you might be thinking of. The Valkyrie, which promises near-F1 level performance, is nearing full production, but only 150 of those will be built, and at $3.2 million each, they are presumably beyond 007's civil-servant budget. Which is where the Valhalla comes in. It looks quite a bit like the Valkyrie, which is to say it will resemble little else on the road, its shape honed as it is by the need to bend airflow to its will. It will be cheaper and built in larger volume, too, although build numbers here will still only stretch to 500 examples, and at more than a million dollars it still isn't exactly what you'd call affordable.

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