Aston Martin V8 supercar expected in 2022

Aston Martin’s new business plan is set to culminate in the company producing a V8-powered mid-engined supercar, company executives have revealed to Autocar.

Aston’s ‘second century plan’, colloquially described as “s*** or bust” by ebullient Aston CEO Andy Palmer, will result in the company releasing one new model every year until 2022, when the range will be complete and model replacement will begin anew.

The Aston Martin-badged mid-engined supercar is likely to generate the most interest among enthusiasts when it arrives in 2022 as the final car in the company’s plan.

Aston design boss Marek Reichman says the midengined car will be “more mainstream” than the limited-edition AM-RB 001 hypercar currently being developed jointly by Aston and Adrian Newey, Red Bull Racing’s chief technical officer. It is understood that the car will sit above the Ferrari 488 GTB — or its contemporary equivalent — when it goes on sale.

“We do projects to learn from them,” said Reichman of the AM-RB 001, although the newly developed, electrically assisted 900bhp-plus V12 that will feature in the hypercar won’t make its way into the ‘mainstream’ supercar. That will instead be powered by a V8.

“All car designers want to design a mid-engined supercar,” said Reichmann. “It’s why you become a designer.” A smaller frontal area, lower nose and shorter overhangs, plus smaller wheels than those on Aston’s frontengined models, will all feature on the standout model.

AM-RB 001 aside, Aston Martin last showed an interest in mid-engined cars in 2014, when it unveiled the DP-100 Vision Gran Turismo at Goodwood. The conceptual 800bhp mid-engined GT racer was created for the hugely popular Gran Turismo 6 computer game, with a crack Aston Martin design team spending six months creating the radical machine. The theoretical twin-turbo V12 was downloadable for gamers. As well as the virtual car, Aston Martin created a full-size 3D display model to emphasise that the DP-100 was far from being a frivolous project.

At the time, Reichman, who led the project, said: “Many of the design cues visible on DP-100 could feed into future sports cars we’ll launch in the offline world.”

The car’s styling referred clearly to the Aston Martin One-77 supercar, to the CC100 anniversary car and even to Aston’s revolutionary midengined Bulldog concept of the early 1980s. The Bulldog was designed by the late William Towns and had the same sort of radically ‘waisted’ bodystyle.

With the AM-RB 001 project now firmly under way, the company will have the engineering and design know-how to extrapolate knowledge for its mid-engined supercar, which will also no doubt have some aesthetic similarities to both the AM-RB 001 and the DP-100 concept.