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

[No Lotus]

Beautiful technical design! Hard to believe with so much air under the bodywork it will fit two fat rich people, a V12 and the cooling system for 1k HP.

Compared to this, a P1 is a versatile city car....

Yeah, I don't get the packaging. This is the lowest car ever, and yet instead of being densely packed with all the necessary components, it's pretty hollow down below. What does not make sense is how high the cg looks to be. The engine and transmission are well off the deck.

[SR71]

Beautiful technical design! Hard to believe with so much air under the bodywork it will fit two fat rich people, a V12 and the cooling system for 1k HP.

Compared to this, a P1 is a versatile city car....

Yeah, I don't get the packaging. This is the lowest car ever, and yet instead of being densely packed with all the necessary components, it's pretty hollow down below. What does not make sense is how high the cg looks to be. The engine and transmission are well off the deck.

Because it's a ground effect car?

[No Lotus]

Beautiful technical design! Hard to believe with so much air under the bodywork it will fit two fat rich people, a V12 and the cooling system for 1k HP.

Compared to this, a P1 is a versatile city car....

Yeah, I don't get the packaging. This is the lowest car ever, and yet instead of being densely packed with all the necessary components, it's pretty hollow down below. What does not make sense is how high the cg looks to be. The engine and transmission are well off the deck.

Because it's a ground effect car?

The engine and transmission should be as low as possible and ground effect supplied by aero tunnels to the sides of the drivetrain. This car is so high off the ground it looks ready for some serious off-roading.

I don't think it's going to have a sophisticated active suspension given their weight targets, apparent lack of space for anything on that car, and repeated statements that it will be incredibly simple.

Someone who was at the reveal in Monaco described a sawtoothed rear wing below the body which obviously doesn't feature in the car shown today.

[SR71]

Yeah, I don't get the packaging. This is the lowest car ever, and yet instead of being densely packed with all the necessary components, it's pretty hollow down below. What does not make sense is how high the cg looks to be. The engine and transmission are well off the deck.

Because it's a ground effect car?

The engine and transmission should be as low as possible and ground effect supplied by aero tunnels to the sides of the drivetrain. This car is so high off the ground it looks ready for some serious off-roading.

I don't think it's going to have a sophisticated active suspension given their weight targets, apparent lack of space for anything on that car, and repeated statements that it will be incredibly simple.

Someone who was at the reveal in Monaco described a sawtoothed rear wing below the body which obviously doesn't feature in the car shown today.

I think Adrian Newey disagrees.... Yes this is a concept preview and I'm sure we're not getting the whole story but I'm sure the engine and transmission are plenty low and I highly doubt the car is pictured at track spec ride height.

You did nicely sum it up with this quote though: "Yeah, I don't get the packaging. "

[VARIANT | one]

I don't think it's going to have a sophisticated active suspension given their weight targets, apparent lack of space for anything on that car, and repeated statements that it will be incredibly simple.

Why would an active suspension be heavier? Granted, you add some weight from the hydraulics and valving systems, but in the case of a racecar (and let's face it, this is a racecar), you eliminate the springs, the third spring, the anti roll mechanism, and all the respective linkages to make that stuff work. You can even ditch the bell cranks if the package is right like with the Williams Active.

[No Lotus]

Because it's a ground effect car?

The engine and transmission should be as low as possible and ground effect supplied by aero tunnels to the sides of the drivetrain. This car is so high off the ground it looks ready for some serious off-roading.

I don't think it's going to have a sophisticated active suspension given their weight targets, apparent lack of space for anything on that car, and repeated statements that it will be incredibly simple.

Someone who was at the reveal in Monaco described a sawtoothed rear wing below the body which obviously doesn't feature in the car shown today.

I think Adrian Newey disagrees.... Yes this is a concept preview and I'm sure we're not getting the whole story but I'm sure the engine and transmission are plenty low and I highly doubt the car is pictured at track spec ride height.

If you had eyes you'd see that they're not plenty low.

[Just_a_fan]

I think it's safe to say this isn't the most beautiful Aston ever so it's also safe to say that most of what we see is performance driven.

Functional Beauty is what we are seeing here... I'd say less than 10% styling details are aesthetic driven, mostly the details that keep it in the AM design language family.

The most beautiful Aston Martin ever, the DBR1, was a pure racing car...it was all performance driven.

and if they had the science knowledge we have now it wouldnt look anything like it did... it would look like the AM/RB-001.
.

No it wouldn't, it would have looked like a current Le Mans LMP1. And it still wouldn't be as beautiful as the DBR1.

I'd be amazed if it will match LMP1 levels of downforce even though it is unfettered by their rules. The fact that it will have much more power is going to be a big help to their lap time aims.

There's a lot of aero bits missing on the press release photos, that much is clear. I bet it won't be so open at the back end when it hits the road.

[gandharva]

My guess, like others have said, is that this program is roughtly 1-1.5 years old. We had a hint at the program when the AM/RB rumors started last year in Monza I believe.

The program with AM is running for 18 month now, according to Horner.

[RegerandeBull]

Amateur analysis of the aerodynamics of the AM-RB 001

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX0G0OpTAdI

What an absolutely bizarre and ridiculous car, I love it. At first I kind of thought it was ugly but it's really growing on me. I hope the headlights on the production version look a lot different than they do now. Also I can't wait to see the track special version.

[djos]

Amateur analysis of the aerodynamics of the AM-RB 001

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX0G0OpTAdI

What an absolutely bizarre and ridiculous car, I love it. At first I kind of thought it was ugly but it's really growing on me. I hope the headlights on the production version look a lot different than they do now. Also I can't wait to see the track special version.

The headlights on the concept are just grey paint atm.

[RegerandeBull]

Amateur analysis of the aerodynamics of the AM-RB 001

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX0G0OpTAdI

What an absolutely bizarre and ridiculous car, I love it. At first I kind of thought it was ugly but it's really growing on me. I hope the headlights on the production version look a lot different than they do now. Also I can't wait to see the track special version.

The headlights on the concept are just grey paint atm.

Yeah I could tell I hope the with real headlights will make the car look much more 'Aston Martin' than it does now. It's kind of strange without them atm.

[djos]

Yeah I could tell I hope the with real headlights will make the car look much more 'Aston Martin' than it does now. It's kind of strange without them atm.

True, some nice laser headlights would be cool!

[RegerandeBull]

Yeah I could tell I hope the with real headlights will make the car look much more 'Aston Martin' than it does now. It's kind of strange without them atm.

True, some nice laser headlights would be cool!

Maybe we'll get some special LMP1 spec headlights but I bet they'll probably end up looking like this

[djos]

Yeah I could tell I hope the with real headlights will make the car look much more 'Aston Martin' than it does now. It's kind of strange without them atm.

True, some nice laser headlights would be cool!

Maybe we'll get some special LMP1 spec headlights but I bet it'll probably end up looking like this

https://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/zOXvZj ... T_42.0.jpg

I think that's a pretty safe bet.

[FoxHound]

Never said it was a running car. But like I said, anyone with product development knowledge will know that AM/RB didnt arrive at the mock-up shown in the photos by just throwing some lines down on the drawing board. The surfaces you see probably represent 90% final surfaces and this is the result of EXTENSIVE simulation and wind-tunnel testing. NOT something you can mock up in 2 months. Obvious again, I know...

Absolute rubbish I'm afraid. You yourself quoted Horner in April:

They also blatantly ignore this:
"Although Aston Martin has not finalised the engine specification for the car yet, it has confirmed that its performance will be helped by extreme ground effect aerodynamics.

They didn't even know what engine it was going to have back then! Edit, they still actually don't and are currently "working" on it with "partners".

Prototype at Goodwood in June!

Foxhound, any response?

Or do you agree you misjudged this project and the actual timeline massively?

What else could you be wrong about?

The projects only a few weeks old so probably not much right

Yup, Goodwood happened right?!

Also as far as the project goes, Aston Martin met up with Red Bull a year ago in Silverstone. So it is very likely that a project was agreed a year ago. And yes I'm fully aware how PR releases work.
It still does not detract from the fact that in this time, all we have seen is a shell of a car. Something that any design studio worth their salt could do, especially with a £99m budget.

When the project started in September 2012, it was evident that this new concept had to be ready by early March for the Geneva Motor Show, which is traditionally the most important event for European car design studios.

http://www.carbodydesign.com/2013/06/pi ... n-process/


For what it's worth, I'm impressed by the shell. That car looks tiny, and light, which it will need to be to have any chance of getting close to it's makers objectives of being faster than an F1 car around silverstone.