DRIVE OF THE VALKYRIE

It has been a tortuous seven years since Aston Martin's hugely ambitious hypercar was first revealed, but now, finally, we get a chance to experience it for ourselves

- RICHARD MEADEN

VALKYRIE. THE CAR WE FEARED WE'D never drive. Yet here it is, parked proudly in the sultry warmth of the Bahrain International Circuit, awaiting its audience with a select group of the world's motoring media. Whether you're remotely fond of Aston Martin or simply seduced by the insanity of attempting to build and homologate Adrian Newey's vision for the ultimate road-legal hypercar, getting behind the wheel of a finished Valkyrie is a Big Day indeed.

Such has been its turbulent genesis, troubled financing, and tortured gestation, the Valkyrie's plug could surely have been pulled countless times. Few cars have endured such a protracted and, at times, humiliating development, fewer still conducted under such public scrutiny. Still, if it was easy everyone would be doing it. Right?

That literally nobody was doing it should probably have been enough of a clue to deter Aston Martin from committing to such a moonshot, but in AML's defence the prospect of a Newey-designed, high-downforce, high-revving, hybrid hypercar was utterly mouth-watering. Building a head of steam in advance of AML's Initial Public Offering (IPO) on the London Stock Exchange certainly did the ultra-ambitious project's sign-off chances no harm, but whichever way you slice it, the Valkyrie programme has been catnip to anyone who loves fiendishly fast cars.

And rightly so, for not since the McLaren F1 had we been treated to the prospect of a car that would rewrite the rules of road-legal performance. Yes, there has been the Bugatti Veyron, but where Ferdinand Piëch's vision was a rocket sled blessed with the temperament of a VW Golf, the Valkyrie was Newey's chance to take all his Grand Prix-winning genius and refract it through a road-going hypercar prism. For Aston it was an irresistible opportunity to reach for the stars.