NOT BEING A STUDENT OF WAGNER I HAVE NEVER REALLY UNDERSTOOD THE MEANING OF THE WORD VALKYRIE, nor the etymological connection to the extraordinary-looking vehicle you see before you now. Having driven it at Bahrain's F1 circuit I was rather hoping that it would be some wildly idiosyncratic beast which turned out to be rather different to what people might have expected.
Sadly the connection seems limited to it being an angry sounding word beginning, as is the Aston nomenclature, with a V. Because Valkyrie was actually the daughter of a god who protected some people. Art and cars rarely mix well.
I feel in some danger of trotting out the standard hypercar tester's handbook of excuses for this machine. It is monstrously late, hasn't ended up being entirely faithful to the original offering and under most circumstances I don't doubt a base Porsche 911 would allow its driver to travel faster. But the handbook insists that I ignore that rather fundamental fact. As we do for most hypercars because they are the chocolate fireguards of our world.
But doesn't it look fantastic? A futuristic amalgam of sci-fi angles and negative spaces. You walk around it wondering what bizarreness you'll see next. In some respects it could be argued that these cars are better left as static objects and maybe demonstrated by others so we can all hear them and see them scream past.
Denne historien er fra April 2023-utgaven av Top Gear.
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Denne historien er fra April 2023-utgaven av Top Gear.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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INEOS GRENADIER
\"It looks like it could batter its way through anything\"
The 1,000bhp P1 drift car is finished (on the outside] and doesn't it look sensational?
WHAT IS IT? A McLaren racecar carbon tub clothed in P1 GTR panels with the full drift car treatment. Consider us well and truly intrigued
HEAD TO HEAD SUPER SALOONS
This should just be your usual, regular, ultra fast, four door battle. But after what AMG has done to one of our very favourite speed machines, it's anything but. It's AMG C63 vs Alfa QF...
REAR OF THE YEAR
What happens when you cross Zagato with Alpine? An A110 that can change its clothes...
SAVE THE WHALES
Since a Californian startup began reimagining 15 years ago, the popularity of restomod Porsches has exploded. Does Singer still do it best? We'll let its latest-turbocharged - creation answer that one...
...sell on Monday
Driving to Pikes Peak in Ford's Mustang Mach-E Rally on the path least trodden, arriving in time to see its F-150 SuperTruck take on the hillclimb. What could go wrong?
GO WITH THE FLOW
The most aerodynamic car Audi has ever made... is a great big executive barge. And when the smoke clears, you'll see it's been a long time coming...
SCRAMBLED SEGG
The Koenigsegg Chimera is a one-off mashup of Agera RS, Jesko and, CC850 - potent, but what exactly is the point?
SIMPLIFLY AND ADD LIGHTNESS
At the peak of Lotus's powers, boss Colin Chapman bought himself the coolest aircraft in motorsport history... 45 years later, TopGear's on a mission to find it again
CANNON BULL
Adrian Newey's RB17 hybrid V10 hypercar is at long last (almost) ready Track car, perfection or pointless?