Aston Martin, Red Bull Racing reveal futuristic ‘hypercar’

More details of the AM-RB 001’s technical specification will be revealed in due course, but its heart is a new, mid-mounted, high-revving, naturally aspirated V12 engine with the potency to achieve a 1:1 power-to-weight ratio; 1 bhp per kilo of weight.

Once everything is put together, the AM-RB 001 is expected to tip the scales in the neighborhood of 1,000 kg (2,200 pounds), putting it just a tad heavier than an LMP1 race vehicle.

For the production of the vehicle, numbers will be pretty limited with only 99-150 examples being made, including the prototypes and 25 track-only examples.

Luxury auto brand Aston Martin has joined forces with championship-winning Formula 1 team Red Bull to create a new road-legal hypercar. First deliveries of the AM-RB 001 are expected in 2018. A substantial figure to most, but a relative bargain for the lucky few when compared to the average F1 team’s R&D budget.

The auto is incredibly low, making other hypercars like the LaFerrari, McLaren P1 and Porsche 918 look huge.

The launch also paves the way for Aston to re-enter Formula 1 racing after half a century’s absence.

Regarding McLaren, whose P1 hypercar and its successor will be direct competition for the AM-RB 001, Red Bull team boss Christian Horner said he’s sure McLaren CEO Ron Dennis would be “spitting into his coffee right now”.

Back in 2014 Newey designed a virtual vehicle for PlayStation’s Gran Turismo, called the X2014.

The AM-RB 001 will be built at the same special facility in Gaydon, England, that produced the Aston Martin One-77 supercar, with engineering work shared between Aston’s Q personalization division and Red Bull Advanced Technologies.

“The synergy between Red Bull Racing and Aston Martin is clear”. It’s called the AM-RB 001 and it’s created to be immensely quick both on the road and on the track.

And if you’re just now thinking you want one?

He said: “The AM-RB 001 is a truly remarkable project and something of which I’m extremely proud. And so working with Marek and his people has been a very positive, iterative loop where we’ve bounced ideas around and come up with different solutions, some of which it’s fair to say haven’t been done before”. And if I look at things like the current fad for dual-clutch gearboxes in this type of auto, they typically weigh around 150 kilograms [330 pounds] and are very bulky. Nevertheless, I am sure the road-going version will be equally impressive.

“I’ve long harbored the desire to design a road auto”, said Newey.