2002 Aston Martin Db7 Vantage Coupe 2-door 6.0l on 2040-cars

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Aston Martin's upcoming hypercar officially named Valkyrie

For all of the awesome design and impressive promised performance of the upcoming hypercar from Aston Martin and Red Bull, it has had until now a terrible name. AM-RB 001 never really rolled off the tongue, nor did it evoke power and beauty like past Aston Martin names, such as Vanquish. But Aston has fixed that with the car's new name, Valkyrie. It's a solid name, one that comes from Norse mythology. Not only that, but it continues Aston's use of names starting with "V" (Vantage, Virage, Vulcan, et al). It's also way easier to say than the serial number that was the old name. We're looking forward to getting the full official specs, too. So far, we know it will have a V12, and the company is aiming for a one horsepower to one kilogram power-to-weight ratio, similar to that of the Koenigsegg One:1. We've also heard that Aston will sell just 175 cars, with each running about $3 million. Related Video:

Prince Charles visits Aston Martin with his Aston, helps build a DBX, draws tabloid ire

A very British thing happened this week: Prince Charles visited Aston Martin's new factory in St. Athen, driving there in his own Aston Martin. He took his DB6 that over a decade ago was converted to run on waste wine (yes, really) and was used in William and Kate's wedding. His visit included touring the new factory that will build the 2020 Aston Martin DBX, as well as talking with Aston's apprentices. A plaque was placed to commemorate the visit. Aston also let him put the finishing touch on a DBX, placing the front badge. The bad news is, no one will be able to say their DBX was partly made by royalty, as the car Prince Charles finished was a pre-production model. The good news is that customer DBXs will have their badges applied professionally, and while Prince Charles' badge placement skills may be fine, we trust the pros to ensure secure and aligned fitment. Maybe we shouldn't pile on, after all, Prince Charles attracted the ire of a British publication called Express. The tabloid secured footage of Charles pulling up to the factory in the DB6, and proceeded to deride a lack of turn signal and clipping the center line while making the turn. Of course if you watch the video yourself, you'll see that, yes, he did fail to signal, but otherwise his turn seemed entirely boring and inoffensive. We at Autoblog see vastly worse driving on a daily basis, so we think the tabloids ought to cut Charles a break on that turn.

Mercedes to offer SL, GL platforms to Aston Martin?

The agonizingly slow courtship between Aston Martin and Mercedes-Benz has been a regular topic of conversation ever since the 2009 Lagonda Concept debuted, riding on a Mercedes GL chassis. Beyond that one polarizing concept, though, nearly every other attempt to pair the two brands up in a major way has fallen through. Only the technical partnership between Mercedes and Aston for certain components from AMG, which was negotiated back in July, has held up so far.
That may finally be set to change, according to an excellent profile of the two brands' relationship from Automobile, which claims that two platforms will unite the Germans and Brits. The first tie up is, not surprisingly, a sports car.
As Aston Martin's VH platform - which underpins every car that comes out of Gaydon - continues to age, the pressure will well and truly be on Aston to find a next-gen replacement to underpin the successors to the Vantage, Vanquish, DB9 and Rapide. Automobile claims Mercedes has just such an architecture, in the form its new modular sports car platform. This new platform is slated for the next-generation SLK and SL and is still in its design infancy.