The Aston Martin Valhalla is a phenomenal supercar – so long as you jettison your suitcase

Valhalla is known in Norse mythology as the Hall of Heroes, which is fitting given how driving Aston Martin’s new supercar makes you feel. Despite its wild design, enormous power and seven-figure price tag, this is a car that makes you feel like a hero. Not one to be afraid of.

Revealed as a concept way back in 2019, Valhalla is Aston’s first mass-produced, mid-engined supercar. It’s also the company’s first plug-in hybrid, uses its first dual clutch gearbox, and it’s first to combine a turbocharged V8 engine with a trio of electric motors. And, since two of those can drive the front wheels with the engine turned off, the Valhalla is technically Aston’s first front-wheel-drive EV, too. But we don’t need to dwell on that.

Priced from £850,000 (but closer to a million in reality, since Aston expects buyers to drop an extra 20 percent on personalisation), the Valhalla sits at a rarified altitude. More than double that of Aston’s front-engined flagship, the Vanquish, but a comparative bargain compared to the £2.5m Valkyrie.

Aston Martin is keen to point at the £3m (plus tax) Ferrari F80 as a rival – also a carbon-tubbed hybrid hypercar with vertical doors and limited to under 1,000 examples.

It’s hard to disagree, but since a step below F80 on Ferrari’s food chain takes you to the £400,000 Testarossa, the Valhalla has carved out a segment of the market all to itself.

Aston’s AMG-derived but heavily reworked 4.0-litre, twin-turbocharged, flat-plane crank V8 engine serves up about 800 horsepower on its own, but when combined with the three motors – two at the front, one with the engine and gearbox – total output is 1,079 PS.

More tellingly, there’s also a muscular 1,100 Nm of torque. Add this to all-wheel-drive traction and 60 mph is passed in 2.5 seconds. Top speed is 217 mph and the maximum downforce of 600kg is available from 150 mph to V-max. Dry weight is about 1,600 kg, so closer to 1,800 kg with fuel and driver.

Even before you sit behind the Valhalla’s rectangular steering wheel, the sense of drama is palpable. It’s not as extreme as the Valkyrie, but is clearly cut from the same cloth. Active aerodynamics at both the front and rear include a pronounced wing that rises 255 mm from the rear deck when Race mode is enabled. This then pivots up and down to increase downforce through corners, cut drag on straights, and act as an air brake. There’s active aero at the front too, lurking behind the full-width front grille.

Other exterior highlights include the side air intakes behind the doors, a vast rear diffuser, and a pair of exhaust pipes sprouting from the rear deck, just behind a roof-mounted, F1-style snorkel. Two more pipes exit more discreetly from beneath the numberplate.

There’s masses of supercar drama here. But the recognisable Aston Martin face and relatively clean side profile – plus how the rear wing is hidden much of the time – give the Valhalla an aesthetic that’s as attractive as it is aggressive. Go for a more subdued paint option, and the Valhalla is visually more sophisticated than some of its lairier European rivals.

Lift the door, step over the wide carbon sill and drop down into the seat. There are no harnesses, or an exposed roll cage, but there’s still plenty to remind you that this is no ordinary Aston.

The seats are carbon fibre buckets, and offer only the option to slide back and forth with the pull of a leather hoop between your legs. The seating position is low and reclined, with your ankles elevated to hip height.

It isn’t quite a Formula One car – often likened to laying in a bath with your feet on the taps – but for a road car it turns the sense of occasion up to 11. So too does the view out, through the remarkably wide but shallow windscreen, and the steering wheel, which adjusts for reach and height, and moves as one with the digital display fitted behind.

At first these seem far too high, but once you’re comfortable it all makes sense. The Valhalla’s seating position is one packed with theatre, but is surprisingly comfortable too.

My time with the Valhalla begins on track. More specifically, I have three circa-15 minute sessions at Circuito de Navarra in northern Spain. Relatively short at 2.7 miles and resurfaced just a year ago, it’s a technical circuit with plenty of elevation change and is snooker table-smooth.

I begin tentatively, but soon learn my way around both the car and track. The Valhalla’s all-wheel-drive gives it phenomenal traction out of low-speed corners, while the massive carbon brakes – aided by both electric motor regen and drag from the air brake – have a reassuringly firm pedal. The steering is quick and accurate, with no need to ever remove my hands from a ten-to-two position, and the large gear shift paddles move with a nice, tactile action.

With the car in Race mode, I can see the rear wing moving up and down in the digital display that acts as a rearview mirror. It moves from +51.5 degrees when working as an air brake, to -8.5 degrees in its automated DRS mode, reducing drag when you have the accelerator pinned and the steering straight. Moving between the two angles takes less than half a second, Aston says. As well as slowing the car, the wing’s air brake function helps improve stability under heavy braking, since it pushes the rear down into the road.

Track layout committed to memory, I start to push the Valhalla further. Aston says 90 percent of the Valhalla’s maximum torque is available from 2,500rpm – and you can tell. The way it launches itself out of slow corners is particularly impressive, the electric motors instantly deploying around 240 horsepower and helping to disguise the V8’s brief turbo-lag. A blink of an eye later, the turbos are up to speed and the engine is well into its stride. Speed piles on more quickly than you can say the numbers aloud, and I’m up to an indicated 260 km/h (162 mph) before hitting the brakes for turn one.

The Valhalla is loud, and while not musical like a highly-strung V6 or V12, it has a muscularity to its soundtrack. Unfortunately, the 7,000rpm rev limiter feels a bit stingy. I clattered into it a few times, expecting the revs to rise for another couple of seconds before I’d need to grab another gear. Instead of wringing its neck in every gear, the Valhalla shines brightest when you lean on the vast well of torque from the electric motors. This is a supercar that bellows but doesn’t sing.

I found downshifts were easier to judge, despite the low rev limiter, each gear arriving promptly but without the immediacy of a Ferrari paddle shift.

Having proven itself on track, I switched cars (and tyres, from Michelin Cup2 to the less aggressive Pilot Sport 5 S) and took a Valhalla out for an hour’s drive on the public road. Here I fully expected – and indeed braced for – a car so stiffly sprung that it’d make the overly-firm Aston Martin Vantage feel like a limo.

But no. The Valhalla rides incredibly well. The way it dealt with bumps, speed humps and broken road surfaces was totally unexpected, its adaptive Bilstein dampers soaking everything up and producing a calm, composed ride. I’m itching to find out how it handles the lunar-like roads of the UK.

Visibility is good, the seating position is seriously comfortable, the cabin is fairly quiet when cruising, and the car feels so well-mannered that I reckon we’ll see Valhalla owners using theirs far more than drivers of some other million-quid hypercars. My car had the optional Bowers & Wilkins sound system fitted, which was pretty good when cranked up loud but didn’t wow in the way it probably would in a silent EV.

Speaking of which, I had a quick play with the Valhalla’s hybrid drive mode. Here, the car switches between engine, electric motor and a combination of both however it sees fit. Aston Martin claims the tiny, 6.1 kWh battery is good for about 7.5 miles of electric range. Not much, but enough to avoid waking your neighbours on an early morning drive. EV mode works up to 80 mph, but it’s best to think of this as a plug-in hybrid where it’ll crawl through traffic in silence, use the battery for reverse and as a starter motor, then combine it with the engine for maximum performance.

It’s a phenomenally good road car – far more approachable than its looks and track performance suggest – but the Valhalla is let down by a total lack of boot.

There’s no frunk either, and no dedicated helmet storage for track days. You get a couple of fairly large door pockets, a single cup holder, somewhere to put your phone, and that’s about it. Aston says it’s working on some bespoke luggage that’ll slot behind and under the seats. But that’s unlikely to turn the Valhalla into a European road trip car, which is a great shame given how usable it is. Best to send your suitcases down to Nice in advance.

Practicality aside, the Valhalla is deeply impressive, especially so since this is Aston’s first attempt at a mass-produced mid-engined supercar. (There will be 999 examples built, compared to just 225 Valkyries).

It looks fabulous, goes like stink, makes great use of a sophisticated plug-in hybrid drivetrain, and pulls off the clever trick of being seriously rapid yet entirely approachable on track, then refined and even comfortable on road.

The Valhalla takes Aston Martin into new territory, where instead of sticking to sports cars, GT cruisers and SUVs, it now squares up directly against Ferrari, McLaren and Lamborghini as a bona fide supercar maker.