Opinion After Driving: The Aston Martin Valhalla Is a Poster Child for Modern Performance Madness

“So, how was it?!”

An entirely predictable and proper question to ask of someone who’s just driven Aston Martin’s nearly $1.1 million, 1,064-horsepower Valhalla. But this decades-long auto publication tradition of reviewing supercars, perhaps always somewhat of a frivolous endeavor, has in relatively recent times taken an even more acute turn into the surreal.

So much so that when at least four different friends/colleagues asked me that question the day after a drive of the 2026 Aston Martin Valhalla, I hesitated briefly before replying with some version of, “Er, exactly how you expect it be.” I recognized almost immediately that while this wasn’t meant to be whatsoever flippant, it only makes any iota of sense if you’ve been fortunate enough to experience the state of the supercar art for yourself here in the once inconceivable 2020s.

A Long Time Coming

Seven years weirdly feels like more than a lifetime ago, no doubt exacerbated by the mind-screw of the isolated pandemic years that, for many, caused time to cease being linear. But that’s how long it’s been since the 2019 Geneva Motor Show where Aston first presented what was then dubbed the AM-RB 003.

That original name, which has since changed to one from Norse mythology (Valhalla is the glorious afterlife realm where heroic dead warriors’ spirits go to prepare for an epic final battle; it also conveniently begins with a V, keeping with one of Aston’s traditional naming conventions), was a reflection of the automaker’s then-sponsorship ties to the Red Bull Racing Formula 1 team.

A lot has changed since, and not just the name. Aston and Red Bull cut ties following the 2020 F1 season after the former’s then-new boss Lawrence Stroll binned his Racing Point F1 team’s name in favor of branding it as the famous British marque. More importantly, the automotive landscape was evolving quickly, as was Aston.

There was chaotic turnover within the internal ranks, and the Valhalla’s hybrid powertrain—first planned as an in-house-designed turbocharged 3.0-liter V-6 with performance to match certain other, then-more-relevant hybrid hypercars like the LaFerrari and Porsche 918 Spyder—became a hybridized Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series-derived twin-turbo V-8. (Compared to the GT Black Series, Aston gives it bigger turbos, a new inlet manifold, stronger pistons, and different camshafts to bump the output by nearly 100 hp and 50 lb-ft; the Valhalla is now the exclusive home of this engine.)

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When I sat in a mockup of the car on the Pebble Beach Concours’ lawn in August 2022, giggling at the Valhalla’s F1-inspired reclined and elevated-leg seating position, the projected specs for the V-8-based powertrain had jumped from a combined 937 horsepower and 738 lb-ft of torque to 1,012 hp and an undisclosed torque figure. None of this was finalized, Aston said, but it was all more than enough to cause me to say, “Please, I want to drive it, whenever it’s ready.”

Worth the Wait ...

Based on what Aston Martin said at that time about the Valhalla’s development cycle, I didn’t think another three and a half years would pass before I got the chance, but the production version’s hardware exceeds all those earlier expectations.

The flat-plane-crank, dry-sump, twin-turbo 4.0-liter V-8 makes 817 hp; combined with a total of 248 hp provided by two Aston-designed radial-flux permanent-magnet motors on the front axle and a third mounted to and working inside the new eight-speed dual-clutch gearbox (an Aston first), peak outputs are 1,064 hp and 811 lb-ft.

Along with the motors, the hybrid system is comprised of a 560-cell battery pack (engineers say it’s an off-the-shelf AMG battery that’s the only part of the hybrid system Aston doesn’t make) kept cool by immersing the cells completely in dielectric oil. The simplified upshot of the latter is, as chief engineer Andrew Kay told us, “We’re able to push energy into the battery and cycle it out very quickly [meaning recharge and deployment of electrical energy]. This is very good for track use, in particular.”

Unlike the original Valhalla concept and its Valkyrie big brother, the production model is also a plug-in hybrid, capable of driving the car in EV-only mode for up to 8.7 miles and an 80-mph top speed. For a deeper dive into the tech, you can read our previous rundown here.

... but Something Else Happened Along the Way

Über-nerdy/semi-pedantic readers may have already taken umbrage to the earlier use of the term “supercar,” but the company itself refers to the Valhalla as its first-ever mid-engine supercar. Surely, though, it’s a hypercar?

Yes, except for the Valkyrie’s existence, which apparently means marketing descriptions and talking points about “first ever” achievements are painted into a corner wherein “super” rather than “hyper” is the preferred prefix. Whatever. The Valkyrie is barely a street car; its $3-plus million starting price tag and production run of 285 examples make the Valhalla’s million-and-change MSRP and 999-unit inventory seem relatively pedestrian.

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That’s an absurd statement in the real world, of course, but it speaks to something bigger in the realm of modern high-performance automobiles, in terms of both price and capability.

Perhaps the car enthusiasts among millennials, zoomers, and Gen Alpha are long accustomed to yet another new million-dollar car populating their social media feeds on a seemingly monthly if not weekly basis. Each one spits out once unheard-of power and torque figures, acceleration and lap times, and a list of tech specs, features, options, and bespoke luxury choices that’s longer than the Nürburgring’s full endurance layout.

For people who are a bit older but hardly AARP members, however, it’s easy to recall the shockwave dealt by something like the 627-hp, $800,000-ish McLaren F1 back in 1993–94. Or even more so the Bugatti Veyron a mere 20 years ago, the car generally considered to be the first million-dollar, 1,000-hp hypercar.

Nowadays? Since the day I sat in the Valhalla prototype at Pebble Beach, we’ve, as just one example, driven the Porsche 911 GT3 RS that only has about half as much horsepower and overall “exotic” tech but brings so much racing-derived aerodynamics and other hardware to the fight that it requires pro-racer skills to maximize on a racetrack. It’s suitability as a road car, given its suspension setup, is fair game for debate.

Stepping up, to varying degrees, in price, construction, and tech war-chest levels, MotorTrend in just the past few months has sampled the Ferrari F80, 849 Testarossa, Czinger 21C VMax, even the more “run of the mill but dizzyingly fast” Porsche 911 Turbo S, to name just a few. Hell, you can buy a hybrid Corvette ZR1X with 1,250 hp no one really saw coming back when the Valhalla was but a brilliant spark in Aston Martin’s and then-Red-Bull F1-design-God partner (and now Aston F1 managing technical partner) Adrian Newey’s collective eyes.

Just Drive It

Whether or not Teddy Roosevelt originated the proverb, it’s with all this in mind that “comparison is the thief of joy” has never been a more appropriate jumping-off point in hyperc ... ahem, supercar terms. It’s also coincidentally appropriate here because we know the odds of ever orchestrating a proper comparison test among the vehicles listed above, perhaps other than the ZR1X, are zero, thanks mostly to Maranello’s longtime aversion to supplying publications like ours with cars for head-to-head showdowns. (Shame on you, Ferrari.)

No matter, because given how high the dynamic limits are, it’s a far more satisfying endeavor to drive something like the Valhalla on its own merits and for whatever experience it provides.

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Make no mistake; the overall experience matters in a car like this. For quite awhile it hasn’t been good enough to be pleasant and thrilling on the road but perform like understeering crap on the racetrack, or be mesmerizing on the track but deliver a chiropractor’s billable-hours wet dream on the road. We already knew, mostly, this Aston Martin was a winner on all fronts after MotorTrend’s Angus MacKenzie sampled a “prototype” that was pretty much the finished article, save for some transmission calibration, a few months back.

On the Road

Unlike Angus, who only drove it on the Silverstone Circuit’s short Stowe layout in the U.K., Aston this time around gave us a 50-minute road loop to begin with. You might naturally look at the Valhalla’s pseudo Le Mans Hypercar appearance and low, wide stance and indeed expect a compromised daily driver, but that’s not at all the case. At least, other than the utter lack of luggage storage; there are some small cubbies in the door cards but no frunk due to that potential cargo space being eaten up by three high-temp radiators, the electric motors, and a racing-style, pushrod-actuated horizontally mounted inboard suspension layout.

Aston executed the latter solution in part because of the F1-style driving position; you sit so low that a conventional suspension would have raised the bodywork’s height too much to maintain an entirely clear sightline ahead. There’s no backrest angle adjustment, so you must adapt to the seating position, and the seats are bolted so low into the carbon-fiber monocoque tub that there’s no motor beneath them to slide yourself forward and back. Instead, you pull a leather strap between your legs and push to and fro to make those adjustments.

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You get used to the driving position quickly—it really isn’t that extreme—and you realize within two miles that the Valhalla-specific Bilstein DTX active damper system and overall suspension setup (the rear end uses a five-link layout) make for a dang comfortable megacar of this variety. The Spanish road route we drove was hardly a rough one, but neither was it infinitely smooth and perfect, yet there wasn’t a wide gap between the suspension’s Sport and Sport+ settings—a welcome, usable trait we’ve praised on other new Astons, like the Vantage. Race mode introduces a harsher ride you’d probably grow tired of in mundane cruising scenarios, but you can absolutely live with it, too, especially on a well-maintained, fast sweeping road when it’s playtime.

The square-ish steering wheel feels mostly nice to use, but the molded-in crease/edge that runs vertically up the grip’s backside that your fingers naturally bend around—to help give you a more-positive grip than does a rounded surface—might not be the most comfortable for everyone. The steering feel itself is intuitive, maintaining a lovely weight that’s neither too light nor heavy across various drive modes.

When I came across a long, wide-open stretch of country road with no one in sight, I brought the car to a stop, stood on the brake and throttle pedals, and launch-controlled the Valhalla as hard as it would go. Other than an initial slight, slidy wiggle from the rear as the tires looked to hook up completely, it’s simply a matter of goooooo. Aston says 0–62 mph happens in 2.5 seconds, so figure on a 0–60 run of 2.4, maybe 2.3. The speed is no more or less shocking than it is in other similar cars, but an impressively flat torque curve means 90 percent of the peak 811 lb-ft is available from 2,500 rpm all the way to the power peak that arrives at 6,700 rpm. It just never lets up.

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If there’s a relative disappointment that supercar/hypercar aficionados and owners might point to, it’s the lack of ultra-high revs this powertrain produces with its redline set to 7,000 rpm. Then there’s the concert itself, a multifaceted mix of electric motors, turbos, induction, and exhaust. In totality, it’s loudish without being over the top, which is satisfying when your right foot opens the floodgates, but no one is ever going to include this on a list of best-sounding engines for the ages—there’s just a lot going on, and not for the audibly better.

Valhalla on the Track

There’s even more in play on the track, in this case Spain’s Circuito de Navarra, a 2.7-mile medium-speed road course with a nice blend of corners, braking zones, and some elevation change. This closed environment, much more so than the open road, reveals the power of the Aston Martin Valhalla’s trick torque vectoring, aerodynamics, and monster braking system.

You want to run the car in Race mode, not because it’s named as such and because you’re on a racetrack, but because of how the hybrid system operates. In Sport+ on the road, because drivers aren’t usually asking for full power in big long bursts, this mode dumps a huge amount of electric boost to the wheels, draining the battery at a quick rate that the brake-by-wire system then recovers so you’re ready to go again the next time.

However, on a track when you’re constantly pressing the throttle as quickly, hard, and often as possible, Race mode meters the electric assist via a recharge strategy that holds back up to 15 percent state of charge to protect you from ever running out and thus having to rely solely on the combustion engine. According to Kay, this results in a typical total loss of 15–20 hp, perhaps a maximum of 30, simply to prevent the battery from ever getting to zero charge. “In Sport+ on a track, you will get more noticeable reduced performance after a lap or two because it will start reining it in because it derates [the battery], but Race mode never does that—it’s overall the most efficient and usable,” he said.

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That matches the firsthand experienced across a couple lapping sessions, and it’s beyond welcome to have a mode like this that takes care of everything for you so you can concentrate on driving the car without needing to fiddle around with buttons or contemplating the best driving strategy like F1 drivers are presently compelled to do.

As Angus reported after his previous drive, the Valhalla, for all its capability, feels as benign as a Vantage if you’re a reasonably experienced driver. The one thing he suspected but couldn’t confirm was if the car’s performance on the tighter Silverstone Stowe track would be the same on a faster, flowing circuit. But he was correct—the Valhalla takes whatever you throw at it and asks for more, thanks to its hugely stable platform that never feels like it’s about to drop-kick you off into the weeds.

What feels like mostly neutral handling, at least at the speeds I could summon during a first-drive press launch, is so rewarding that drivers looking for a big-drama circus filled with jarring traction breaks and huge sideways moments might want to look at cheaper, more conventional alternatives. For Aston slappies, consider the front-engine, rear-drive Vantage. Or save a lot of money and buy a BMW M car, or cheaper yet, a Mustang.

Sure, the Valhalla will dance sideways if you make it do so through a combination of snappy, aggressive throttle and weight-transferring steering inputs as you come off the brakes, but the front-axle torque vectoring and rear e-differential really just want to keep the chassis rotating into and pulling out of corners with minimal fuss, enticing the driver to push harder and harder while maintaining their confidence in the car. And that’s the entire point of all this whizbangery, given both the potential straight-line and cornering speeds. The double extra achievement Aston has pulled off is making all the dynamics-influencing tech feel entirely natural and virtually invisible to the driver.

To the point: When the lapping sessions were over, all I wished for was another hour or three on the track because I had just begun to feel like I knew both the circuit and car well enough to begin truly edging somewhere near at least approaching the limit. In other words, there was no feeling of relief over having managed to drive a million-dollar, 1,064-hp machine reasonably quickly around a racetrack without stuffing it into the fence. Once upon a time, driving cars as fast as this and others like it felt like a survival exercise as much as anything, but that’s no longer the case.

The active aero and braking system play huge roles in this. The latter gives you a beyond-satisfyingly firm brake pedal that never softens, thanks to a large amount of the actual braking being accomplished through battery regen. As with every brake-by-wire system I’ve so far encountered, the downside is a lack of granular feel compared to conventional hydraulic brakes; it’s not much of a deal when tuned well, it just feels different, especially if you expect to rely on old-school feedback to indicate when you’ve crossed the ABS threshold. You can forget about that, but more critically, the braking performance remains consistent, speed notwithstanding.

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Aerodynamically, the underbody front wing and deployable monster rear wing adjust positions based on speed and dynamic conditions. Look under the car and you can see the former resembles an F1 front wing, and yes, Aston Martin Performance Technologies, a division of the F1 team, worked with the Valhalla’s engineers here. As for the rear wing, it also provides an air-brake function when you stomp on the left pedal. In general, it only raises fully in Race mode, and while you can activate that mode on the street, know it entirely blocks the rearview camera, meaning you have no idea what’s behind you.

(Note to cars and coffee peacockers: In a bit of nonsensical bureaucracy, you can’t raise the rear wing with the car turned off, thanks to silly-worded crash regulations intended to prevent its use on the street. Aston may or may not be searching for a workaround following feedback from nearly “everyone who has been around the car.” Also note: The engine cover, due to needing a particular fit to maintain aero performance, requires manual removal with the assistance of simple tools, so you probably won’t be seeing the V-8 on open display, either. Tragic.)

Wisely, rather than chasing a headline peak number, the engineers sought a solution that provides stable, consistent downforce without discombobulated shifting of the aerodynamic center of pressure, something race teams aim to achieve for balance and stability. To that end, the approximately 3,850-pound Valhalla makes a big-time 935 pounds of combined front/rear downforce at 124 mph, and an even bigger-time maximum of 1,345 pounds once you reach 149 mph—and that max figure allegedly remains the same all the way to the car’s top speed of 217 mph. As with the brakes, the result is meant to be (and feels like) consistent, predictable behavior for the driver, aided by the torque-vectoring system that likewise functions to deliver the same feel across the entire potential speed range.

So, How Was It?

There’s so much to unpack with modern cars like this that despite all the above words, there’s plenty more going on beneath the surface. Even chief engineer Kay acknowledged over dinner that it’s practically impossible to delve into it all outside of writing a full book on the subject.

Even when you know all this, and even when you’ve driven other examples of contemporary supercars and hypercars, you still need to experience the latest one to confirm it hits the mark. This one more than does, on racetracks and on public roads. So, in retrospect, responding to the question with something like, “Exactly how you expect it to be,” does the Valhalla and automobiles like it—even ones that, on paper, occupy a rung below—a great disservice. A better, entirely literal answer is, “Not long ago you wouldn’t ever have believed it.”