Aston Martin AM-RB 001 First Look Review

For a company that builds cars called Vantage and Vanquish and Vulcan, AM-RB 001 sounds about as exotic as a VIN number. But the prosaic name belies an extraordinary Aston Martin concept with an astounding performance target: a road car that will deliver Formula 1 race car levels of acceleration, cornering, and braking. “We’re talking an F1 car in race trim, not qualifying trim,” hastens an Aston Martin insider.

OK, consider our expectations managed.

The AM-RB 001 is the product of a joint development program between Aston Martin and Red Bull Advanced Technologies, the Red Bull Racing Formula 1 team’s in-house design and engineering shop headed by superstar race car designer Adrian Newey. Aston Martin says the car shown here represents about 95 percent of the final design.

Ever the cautious engineer, Newey backpedals a little from the F1 performance claim. The track version of the AM-RB 001, he says, will have similar performance levels to a frontline LMP1 prototype such as the Porsche 919 or Audi R18. “We’ll make a road version of that with many common parts,” he says. “There will be minor differences, but the cars will be closely related.” Regardless of the final numbers, this much is clear: The AM-RB 001 is intended to set a new benchmark in road car performance. It will not be as fast in a straight line as the forthcoming Bugatti Chiron, which is expected to top 275 mph. But it will have unworldly agility and grip and acceleration. Aston sources hint at 0-60 mph in 2.5 seconds or less, plus sustained lateral grip and braking in excess of 2.0 g.

The first running prototype is still a year away, but in automotive industry terms, the AM-RB 001 is being developed at the speed of light. Aston Martin and Red Bull Racing execs signed a formal contract green-lighting the project on the eve of the Australian Grand Prix in March. The first of 99 road cars are expected to be delivered by the end of 2018, along with up to 20 more extreme race versions. Price? On current exchange rates, don’t expect much change from $3.2 million.

A lot of the mechanical details have yet to be finalized, but this much we do know: Like most 21st century hypercars, the AM-RB 001 will likely feature a hybrid powertrain. “It’s fair to say hybrids offer a lot of opportunities,” Newey says. “It’s how we use those opportunities. The honest truth is we are evaluating a whole load of different solutions. We haven’t decided. I have a personal favorite I can’t talk about.”

The internal combustion engine will be a naturally aspirated V-12 of between 6.0 and 7.0 liters. The engine will be unique to the AM-RB 001, sharing nothing with the new 5.2-liter, twin-turbo V-12 that’s powering the forthcoming DB11, and will be built by a third-party supplier with extensive Formula 1 experience. It’s going to have to be an impressively compact engine, jammed between a low roofline, a high floor, and two wide venturis down either side of the tub. “Fitting a V-12 in there will be part of the challenge,” Newey concedes. “And it’s obviously not just the engine itself; it’s fitting the radiators, the transmission, the fuel cell. There’s a lot to get in there.”

Newey refuses to be drawn on total power output, but it’s likely the AM-RB 001 will have at least 1,000 hp. Early whispers out of Aston Martin suggested all that power would be funneled to the rear wheels via an eight-speed sequential-shift automated manual transmission. But Newey hasn’t made up his mind. “The car should be small, light, and efficient,” he says, “and if I look at things like the current double-clutch gearboxes, they typically weigh around 330 pounds. We are evaluating some different ideas.”

The entire car will be constructed from ultra-lightweight carbon fiber, aluminum, and titanium. The power-to-weight target is 1 horsepower per kilogram (2.2 pounds), which suggests a curb weight of about 2,200 to 2,400 pounds. But one of the keys to the AM-RB 001’s eye-popping performance target is the Newey-designed aerodynamic package that’s largely hidden out of sight under Aston Martin design chief Marek Reichman’s cab-forward carbon-fiber bodywork.

In simple terms, the AM-RB 001 is a ground-effects car. The dramatically sculpted floor, which sweeps downward from the leading edge of the massive front air intake and swells outward around the passenger compartment like a boat hull, sits farther from the surface of the road than the lower edge of the body sides. There are no cooling elements behind that giant opening at the front of the car. It simply funnels fast-moving air into the deep venturis along either side of the cockpit and out to the rear, creating massive amounts of downforce.

At the rear will be a “blown” spoiler. Although the final number and position of exhaust outlets has yet to be decided, the burned hydrocarbons will exit through the upper body surface at the rear of the car and be directed through the spoiler elements, speeding the airflow and helping to further increasing downforce.

The front wheels are housed in what are effectively sponsons, with large openings behind the fender structure to guide air along the sides of the car and into the massive engine air intake and cooling vents just ahead of the rear wheels. When asked if they function like barge boards, the vertical turning vanes mounted on the side of modern F1 cars just aft of the front wheels, Newey doesn’t disagree. “To an extent, yes,” he says. “There is kind of an evolution from an F1 car to the PlayStation X1 car [the Newey-designed Red Bull racer that appeared in “Grand Turismo 5”] to this car. It’s about managing air flow around the front wheel and then making sure you have good quality air to the floor, the diffuser, and the intakes.”

The final suspension setup has yet to be decided, but an adjustable ride height function will allow clearance enough for road-going AM-RB 001s to be driven on normal roads and lowered to deliver ultimate grip on the track. And unlike the McLaren F1, the hypercar designed by another superstar F1 designer, Gordon Murray, the AM-RB 100 will have electronic driver aids. “With the level of performance, we have to offer driver protection systems,” Newey says. “We want it to be a car that people can use every day, which means at times they’re not going to be fully concentrating. Of course the drivers who have confidence in their own abilities and want to enjoy the car without electronic intervention will be able to do so.”

While they clearly define the AM-RB 001’s form, Newey insists the radical aerodynamics are just part of the overall package. “I don’t really view it as aerodynamics necessarily being a separate thing to the rest of the car,” he says. “It’s getting the mechanical package to work with the aerodynamic package.”

Aston design chief Reichman agrees. “Total integration, whether that’s visual, engineering, mechanical package, or aerodynamics, gives the car its beauty,” he says. “It’s similar to a motorcycle in that the negative space that you would typically cover is exposed, and therefore you reduce parts and complexity because the aero form is the bit that you look at. It’s not hidden or shrouded in any way.”

Newey is tweaking the concept on the Red Bull development simulator, benchmarking it against a rich vein of incredibly detailed and carefully calibrated performance data from the Formula 1 team and data from the car’s tire supplier. “On the road car the driving experience is of course a much more subjective judgment,” Newey says.

“We’re really trying to think about it from first principals, particularly in terms of saying this is our vision of what this car should be. Something like a Porsche 911 is basically the triumph of evolution over a bad concept,” Newey says bluntly. “It’s a bad idea, and they’ve managed to make it half-decent by a whole bunch of engineering. The important thing is to get the concept right.”

We’ll find out whether Aston Martin and Red Bull have got it right in a little more than two years’ time.

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