What Do You Think Of The Aston Martin AM-RB 001?

Photos Courtesy of Aston Martin

We’ve seen this before, right? When race car designers get to apply their talents underneath a license plate, magical things happen. The AM-RB 001 is the fruit of Red Bull Racing and Aston Martin’s technical partnership, but what that really means is a hypercar with a projected 1:1 power-to-weight ratio, normally-aspirated V12, and a track version that’s as fast as the top LMP1 Le Mans cars.

How will Aston Martin build a hypercar fast enough to send its rivals from Ferrari, Pagani, Porsche, Koenigsegg, Bugatti, and McLaren packing? A man named Adrian Newey.

If you don’t know his name, you’ll definitely know some of the championship-winning cars he helped to design. The Red Lobster IMSA GTP car, IndyCars that brought wins at the Indianapolis 500 and two overall titles in the mid-’80s, the Leyton House Formula 1 cars—plus the dominant Williams F1, McLaren, and Red Bull Racing cars from 1991…until he wanted a new challenge. (Winning 10 Formula 1 World Constructor’s Championships, plus scores of other milestones will do that.)

Think of the AM-RB 001 is the first time Newey’s experience has been bottled up and ready for inspection at the DMV. Like the howling normally-aspirated Leyton House Formula 1 cars, AM-RB 001 will be a high-revving motor with no hybrid system in sight. Like his early IMSA cars, much of the aerodynamic profile is hidden from view, leaving its profile free from too many wings.

Likewise, when the guy behind the Williams’ FW14 Formula 1 car’s crushingly effective active suspension is able to apply his talents to a road car, you get vague press release lines like, “the AM-RB 001’s suspension system will feature innovative technology and employ principles honed by Newey over his thirty year career. Likewise, the transmission is a clean-sheet design conceived by Newey and developed by Red Bull Advanced Technologies.”

To be constructed in its own area at the Aston Martin works in Gaydon, the company is hoping to produce, “between 99 and 150 road cars inclusive of all remaining prototypes and 25 track-only versions,” with early adopters getting their order fulfilled by the end of 2018.

“I’ve always been adamant that the AM-RB 001 should be a true road car that’s also capable of extreme performance on track, and this means it really has to be a car of two characters,” Newey said in a press release. “That’s the secret we’re trying to put into this car—the technology that allows it to be docile and comfortable, but with immense outright capabilities”.

What’s your take on the AM-RB 001?