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Aston Martin's AM-RB 001 hypercar will have a 6.5-liter Cosworth V12 and so much more

It's been a while since we heard any big news about the Aston Martin-Red Bull hypercar, the plainly named AM-RB 001. When it debuted last year, we got a look at the shape – and that's about it. Sure, a super-powerful V12 hybrid powertrain was promised, but we didn't have any concrete details on it or what was going into the pretty wrapper. Well, now Aston has made some announcements about partners, and they certainly have our attention: Cosworth, Ricardo, Multimatic, and Rimac. Cosworth, the famed engine supplier, will be supplying the engine. It's a 6.5-liter naturally aspirated V12. Aston had previously said the car will be a member of the one-horsepower-per-kilogram club, and so people are expecting the engine to make about 900 horsepower. It will of course be augmented by an electric motor, which will be fed by a high-performance battery from Rimac. (Yes, the same Rimac whose Concept_One has been shown in videos beating everything from Teslas to LaFerraris.) The as-yet-undefined amount of power will be routed through a seven-speed paddle-shift transmission supplied by Ricardo. And because you're going to want to stop, there will be big carbon-ceramic brakes – Alcon and Surface Transforms will supply the calipers and carbon discs. Multimatic, builders of awesome shocks, will make the carbon-fiber tub that everything goes into. Multimatic has worked with Aston in the past, including on its last limited-production vehicle, the One-77. Bosch is responsible for the ECU, traction control, and stability control. LED lights will be supplied by Wipac. So yeah, there almost aren't any high-profile companies left after this announcement. This car is going to be pretty extreme. Aston reiterates that it will build a maximum of 150for the road including prototypes, plus 25 more track-only models. They'll start going to customers in 2019. Related Video: Featured Gallery 2018 Aston Martin Red Bull AM-RB 001 Aston Martin Coupe Hybrid Lightweight Vehicles Performance Supercars aston martin am-rb 001

Maybach and Aston Martin alliance talks fall apart

If you have, like us, been salivating at the notion of a new generation of Maybach and Lagonda ultra-luxury crafts built by Aston Martin, we've got some bad news: According to reports emanating from Germany, talks between AML and Daimler have broken down.
The proposal under negotiation would have seen Daimler outsourcing production of the next family of Maybach models to Aston Martin, which in return would benefit from Mercedes-Benz platforms and engines - not only for its svelte GTs, but also for its own future Lagonda line of limousines and luxury SUVs. That, and a boatload of money - or at least that's what AML was reportedly seeking, an issue that served as the stumbling block over which the deal reportedly collapsed.
That's not to say the two parties couldn't still reach some sort of a compromise, but short of that, Daimler may opt to either shut down Maybach altogether, find another partner, or take another stab at building new models internally.

FIA introduces 'Hypercar Concept' for World Endurance Championship

One of the most common jabs at hypercars is the question, "Where can you drive them to their potential?" Imagine the answer being: to the checkered flag in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. We're not there yet, but the FIA World Motor Sport Council took a step closer to the possibility during its second annual meeting in Manila, the Philippines. One of three initiatives the WSMC announced for the 2020 World Endurance Championship was "Freedom of design for brands based on a 'Hypercar' concept." This "Hypercar concept" would replace LMP1 as the premier class in the WEC. The dream, of course, would be seeing racing versions of the AMG Project One, Aston Martin Valkyrie AMR Pro, Bugatti Chiron, Koenigsegg Regera, McLaren Senna GTR, Pagani Huara BC, and the rest of the gang trading paint and carbon fiber through Dunlop in a heinously expensive version of "Buy on Sunday, sell on Monday." The reality is that we don't have all the details yet on the set of regulations called "GTP," but the FIA wants race cars more closely tied to road cars, albeit with the performance level of today's LMP1 cars. Exterior design freedom would shelter internals designed to reduce costs, the FIA planning to mandate less complex hybrid systems and allow the purchase of spec systems. One of the FIA's primary goals is lowering LMP1 budgets to a quarter of their present levels. Audi and Porsche budgets exceeded $200 million, while Toyota - the only factory LMP1 entry this year and next - is assumed to have a budget hovering around $100 million. Reports indicated that Aston Martin, Ferrari, Ford, McLaren, and Toyota sat in on the development of the proposed class. If the FIA can get costs down to around $25 million, that would compare running a top IndyCar team and have to be hugely appealing to the assembled carmakers. The initiative represents another cycle of the roughly once-a-decade reboot of sports car racing to counter power or cost concerns. The FIA shut down Group 5 Special Production Sports Car class in 1982 to halt worrying power hikes, and introduced Group C. In 1993, Group C came to an ignoble end over costs; manufacturers were spending $15 million on a season, back when that was real money and not one-fifth of a Ferrari 250 GTO. Then came the BPR Global GT Series that morphed into the FIA GT Championship, which would see the last not-really-a-road car take overall Le Mans victory in 1998, the Porsche 911 GT1. That era would be most aligned with a future hypercar class.