Details about the Aston Martin Valhalla mid-engine hybrid supercar have been few and far between while Aston’s been busy bragging about its flagship car, the Valkyrie. But today the Valhalla is the star of the show, as it will feature Aston’s first all-new in-house engine in the last 60 years.
Codenamed TM01 after Tadek Marek, a company engineer back in the 1950s and 1960s, it’s the company’s first truly proprietary engine since 1968. It’s is a 3.0-litre V6 with a “hot V” configuration, which has been utilised in other recent engine designs as a method of adding power while simultaneously keeping the engine more compact by positioning the turbos between the two cylinder rows. Aston brags that this new unit weighs just 200 kilograms.
Of course, the new engine is part of a hybrid setup, which Aston refers to as an “in-house hybrid/plug-in hybrid system” over and over again, and I can’t quite figure out exactly why there are so many words used to describe what I think is a fairly straightforward hybrid design.
There’s no news of power figures yet, but it’s claimed to be the company’s most powerful powertrain when it goes on sale in 2022. Back when this car was still just called the AM-RB 003, rumours said its hybrid powertrain featuring a twin-turbo V6 coupled with a hybrid-powered electric motor on the front axle would put down around a combined 1,000 horsepower.
The design also features a dry-sump system that will, as Aston’s release says, “deliver exceptional lubrication performance during on-limit, high- speed cornering.”
Oh, and also: “Despite the overt nature of this powertrain, the engine is designed to meet all future emission requirements for Euro 7.” If you were worried.
Aston is also already teasing what it has planned for the new V6 beyond the Valhalla, with CEO Andy Palmer claiming it will be “integral to a lot of what we do,” and the release opens by saying the new engine will be employed for a new range of mid-engine sports cars starting with the Valhalla.
I hope it’s a good engine, then.