Aston Martin wants hyper-car to be faster than F1 cars

[SectorOne]

I think we should just appreciate the fact that we get to see Adrian Newey with virtually no strings attached.
Who knows what masterpiece that egg-shaped head of his can envision.

I´m more excited to see his creation then what 11 Formula 1 teams will come up with in 2017.

That is true. But there will be no Adrian Newey with no strings attached. They want to build a road legal two seater car, that means you have A LOT of strings attached.
The basic drawback will be the pedestrian safety, which gives you rules on the minimal radius of the front parts. This kills all fantasy about a Newey Supercar like he designed for the computer game or the car McLaren showed recently.

Where on these cars are there minimal radius front parts?

[No Lotus]

@JAF
I'm not going to sit here and denigrate a great name like Aston Martin to make a point.
But the reality is that Aston Martins main competitors (Ferrari, Porsche), do it all alone."

Ah, no. ERF build the chassis of LaFerrari.

[FoxHound]

@JAF
I'm not going to sit here and denigrate a great name like Aston Martin to make a point.
But the reality is that Aston Martins main competitors (Ferrari, Porsche), do it all alone."

Ah, no. ERF build the chassis of LaFerrari.

Thanks for the correction.

But my inference was regarding their mainstay models. 488, California etc...not the halo car.

[FoxHound]

Foxhound, read Koenigsegg's web site. They actually state that they use external suppliers for various things. But again, they are building extremely limited numbers of bespoke, hand built cars that cost a million, literally. Likewise Pagani. If they tried to build 5000 cars a year selling at 50-70 grand then they would struggle too because the numbers would require using external suppliers of items such as gearboxes. BMW do it and they're a very big player..

Every car maker has suppliers. McLaren use Ricardo as their engine suppliers.
Koenigsegg are no exception, but they do go to extreme lengths to do as much as is possible by themselves, including the engine.
With such low volumes, and for what is effectively a young upstart company, this is in direct contrast to AM.

From Wikipedia..

Apart from developing, manufacturing and selling the Koenigsegg line of supercars, Koenigsegg is also involved in "green technology" development programmes beginning with the CCXR ("Flower Power") flexfuel supercar and continuing through the present with the Agera R. Koenigsegg is also active in development programs of plug-in electric cars' systems and next-generation reciprocating engine technologies.

Koenigsegg develops and produces most of the main systems, subsystems and components needed for their cars in-house instead of relying on subcontractors.

[Mr.G]

Comparing this to Veyron is not the right thing. Veyron supposed to be fast & luxury. I think this will look more like Koenigsegg/Zonda/McLaren...

Also they said IIRC the car will beat F1 in Silverstone...

For the technical issues:

- tires - airplanes landing on tires too, there must be a way
- handling - this will have SW solutions for pure rancing/trafic
- magneto electric susspension
- probably hybrid engine or at least MGU-H to MGU-K direct link without ES...

[Just_a_fan]

With such low volumes, and for what is effectively a young upstart company, this is in direct contrast to AM.

Exactly - low volumes. Not 5000 cars. AM used to make stuff by hand - the bodywork being hand crafted using the English wheel, for example. The investors want volume in the belief that it will bring big returns on their investments. Sadly, AM aren't big enough to do it. Better to be like Koenigsegg or Pagani - owned and driven by a single mind to produce exquisite cars in ultra low volumes.

From Wikipedia..

From Koenigsegg...my highlighting

At Koenigsegg, we are able to fabricate intricate, hand-made metal and carbon fiber components in our own hi-tech production facilities. We also source specialist components from a network of dedicated suppliers and partners – most of which are based in Sweden.

Many of these suppliers are small companies and craftsmen that produce low volumes of incredibly high quality components. The manufacture and assembly of components used in a Koenigsegg are both incredibly labor intensive processes – there are more than 300 hand-formed carbonfibre parts alone in each car, for example – and the materials are extremely costly, without exception.

The key is that they're not building 5000 cars a year. Back in the David Brown and Victor Gauntlet days Aston Martin were more like Koenigsegg. Today, the investors want them to be big but you can't grow like that, especially at the moment. It took a decade and millions invested by Tata for Land Rover to grow to the point they are now. Aston Martin need massive investment, not ego-massaging fantasy trips for Mateschitz and his crew.

[FoxHound]

In scales of economy, 5000 is minuscule and de facto Koenigsegg level.
It's specialist and does not need to conform to a variety of laws a manufacturer producing 10,000 plus vehicles a year must.Interesting that Koenigsegg were the only sub 10,000 supercar maker to pass European pedestrian safety tests.

And the highlighting highlights that Koenigsegg use external suppliers, as does every manufacturer on the planet. I agree.
I disagree that this is anyway similar to Aston Martin sourcing engines, transmissions, electrics and interior parts from AMG.

Pagani are my own personal favourite hypercar manufacturer, and they don't make their own engines.
But I believe from memory Mr Pagani had a great friendship with Mr JM Fangio, who in turn had a solid relationship with Mercedes. It was Fangio himself who suggested Pagani use Mercedes engines and the rest is lore. Again, different from AM.

Can't really be going on about this here anymore so let's PM...

[motobaleno]

Where on these cars are there minimal radius front parts?

all the cars that you referred are not really road legal
they do not comply a whole bunch of EC and most of all US safety rules
they can be made road legal only in some countries like UK and then imported in other ones...
they are small craft factories.
That's not what a joint venture red-bull aston martin wants to be...

[SR71]

Where on these cars are there minimal radius front parts?

all the cars that you referred are not really road legal
they do not comply a whole bunch of EC and most of all US safety rules
they can be made road legal only in some countries like UK and then imported in other ones...
they are small craft factories.
That's not what a joint venture red-bull aston martin wants to be...

Do you have a source that verifies this?

Or are you just making that up?

[SectorOne]

all the cars that you referred are not really road legal

Oh yes, they are road legal alright.

[FLuidd]

Maybe they will build a 2 seater like in ariel atom , but if that car wants to have the same performance as an F1 car , it would need special tires (specially made road legal tires)

It will be a nightmare to take care of this car.

[scuderiafan]

I'm sensing....

Incredibly light weight with exotic materials
Little to no creature comforts (no heated/cooled seats, power windows, etc.)
A FAT engine with LOTS of torque and LOTS of horsepower
And the most incredible road tires ever known to man.

[Tim.Wright]

I had done a rough calc on the high level requirements of this car in another discussion. To get F1 performance you need to match its:

• power to weight ratio: around 1 - 1.3
• downforce to weight ratio (in corners) between 1-2
• peak tyre friction: around 1.6

The killer is going to be the weight given Andy has stated it will be a 2 seater luxury car. If they can get it to 1200kg that already something unheard of in the modern luxury car market. At this point it will need around 1500hp and 2tons of downforce for which tyres are non existent. F1 tyres are already at their limits supporting 700kg + downforce.

[SR71]

I had done a rough calc on the high level requirements of this car in another discussion. To get F1 performance you need to match its:

• power to weight ratio: around 1 - 1.3
• downforce to weight ratio (in corners) between 1-2
• peak tyre friction: around 1.6

The killer is going to be the weight given Andy has stated it will be a 2 seater luxury car. If they can get it to 1200kg that already something unheard of in the modern luxury car market. At this point it will need around 1500hp and 2tons of downforce for which tyres are non existent. F1 tyres are already at their limits supporting 700kg + downforce.

People are getting hung up on "luxury" meaning weight. In the hyper car market true luxury comes from exotic materials and proper use.

Pagani Huayra BC already weighs 1200kgs, is dripping in exotic materials and I believe comes with custom luggage Final down force numbers on this car are not stated, but it's safe to say it's a lot. It's Pirelli's handle 2g's of lateral acceleration.

I know this doesnt get us to F1 performance - I'm only using it to highlight the fact that some naysayers on these forums aren't even aware of production cars available already.

It's also quite naive for forum members to suggest a company like AM and RB would make such proclamations without feasibly being able to back them up. They didnt start this project the day of the announcement, please try to understand how press releases work.

[Tim.Wright]

Luxury in the "income tax" sense just means expensive. Luxury in the Aston Martin sense means a car that drives comfortably. And this costs weight. The interior of the Huayra BC is bare. On the other hand a car designed for comfort will have things like electric seats which weigh around 30-40kg each these days...

Regarding the Huayra BC, Pagani claim 500kg of downforce at 250km/h which is of course a useless number. At a more realistic cornering speed of 150km/h that corresponds to only 180kgf of downforce which, while a lot for a road car, it's off by AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDE if you want to corner like an F1 car.

I'm extremely skeptical about their claim of 2G cornering too...

Then on the power front, its power to weight is about HALF of what it needs to be.

As mental as this car is, its not even close to what Aston are claiming.

Call me a naysayer if you want but I work in this industry and I can spot marketing smoke from a mile away.

Regarding this point:

It's also quite naive for forum members to suggest a company like AM and RB would make such proclamations without feasibly being able to back them up. They didnt start this project the day of the announcement, please try to understand how press releases work.

Google Andy Palmer and Nissan and see what other "such proclamations" he has made.