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Soundcheck: Aston Martin Valkyrie begins to scream

In July, Aston Martin published the first video of the Valkyrie on track at Britain's Silverstone Circuit during the Formula One Grand Prix weekend there. Test driver Chris Goodwin didn't push the 1,160-horsepower coupe to its limits, merely massaging the throttle for the camera a few times. The English carmaker headed back to Silverstone this month with a group of guests in tow, and this time the test driver put a little more muscle into the fly-bys. Since the track was wet, the soundtrack still can't be considered the ultimate experience, but even so, the 6.5-liter Cosworth V12 sounds exceptionally good. This new video injects a high-pitched wail that was missing in July, the kind of wicked, soaring keen that jellies one's organs and notifies the mind of blinding terrors on approach. In fact, the Valkyrie now makes all the noises Formula 1 fans wished the F1 race cars could make. That's no hyperbole, either. Compare the modern Cosworth to the 3.5-liter Honda V12 in the 1991 McLaren MP4/6, the resemblance is clear. Remove the street-legal equipment on the Aston Martin and let Goodwin uncork it, as we expect to happen in next year's World Endurance Championship, and it's clear the WEC might have the best sounding racers in all of motorsport. Deliveries are scheduled to begin before the end of the year, so Aston Martin should be wrapping up its validation testing on Verification Prototype 1 if it hasn't already. After that come competition entries into the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC). And after that, someone will need to convince at least one owner to drive the Valkyrie on the street so that we can all enjoy the noise.

Autoblog's adventures at the Nurburgring 24-Hour race [spoilers]

The brand-new Audi R8 LMS, said to share 50 percent of its components with the street-legal R8 shown off at Geneva, has won its very first race at the 2015 Nurburgring 24-Hours. The No. 28 car driven by Christopher Mies, Edward Sandstrom, Nico Muller, and Laurens Vanthoor for the Audi Sport WRT team out of Belgium finished only 40.279 seconds ahead of the No. 25 BMW Sport Team Marc VDS Z4 GT3 in second place, for the smallest winning gap since the race began in 1970. Those two cars traded the lead throughout Sunday morning and were less than a minute away from one another for the last two hours. They were part of a total 35 lead changes during the entire race – a record for the event – and both did 156 laps. Third place went to the No. 44 Falken Tire Porsche 997 GT3, one lap down. The Audis did what they always do: lurked close to the front, stayed out of trouble, then pounced when everyone else faltered. For the opening stretches the BMW Z4 teams owned it, running 1-2-3 for a while, but all of them hit trouble. When morning came and the race got over its yellow-flag fever, the No. 28 Audi was in front and stayed there. It was the third Nurburgring 24-Hour win for Audi in four years, the brand's first win only coming in 2012. Last year's winner, the Phoenix Audi team that set a race record by doing 159 laps, had both of its cars retire. One hit an oil patch about 12 hours in, spun and was hit by another car behind, taking on too much damage to continue. The other retired with engine issues. Other Notes Three cars crashed out of the race while leading, after the rains that weren't supposed to happen, happened about 90 minutes in. The No. 20 Schubert BMW Z4 led the first 50 minutes of the race, hopped a crest at Pflanzgarten, landed in a pool of water, and hit the wall on the 30th lap. Then the No. 30 Frikadelli Porsche, with a driver team that included ex-'Ring Taxi driver Sabine Schmitz, hit the No. 31 Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 on the approach to Carrousel and crashed out. Then the No. 1 Phoenix Audi, last year's winning car, took the lead but hit the wall after that oil patch near Pflanzgarten and was out of the race. Aston Martin celebrated a class win in the SP8 category with the No. 49 Vantage GT4 N430. This being the tenth anniversary of the Vantage running the Nurburgring-24, this year's car was painted in the same colors as the racecar from ten years ago.

James Bond Aston Martin Lego kit coming soon from Denmark with love

It's a good time to be a Lego fan and a car enthusiast. We've got little Speed Champions models of Le Mans race cars and classic sports cars, and intricate big models ranging from the VW Beetle to the Bugatti Chiron. The streak continues soon with a new kit announced by Aston Martin's Twitter page. Apparently Lego will be making a kit based on a car from one of the James Bond films. It's been 'driving' us wild with excitement and now we're nearly ready to reveal this powerful creation! #LicenceToBuild pic.twitter.com/KYHiHxlcR0 — Aston Martin (@astonmartin) July 3, 2018 The thing is, the cover art doesn't actually show what car will be used. There are quite a few Astons to pick from, too. You've got the most recent one, the DB10 from "Spectre." Then of course the DBS from " Casino Royale" and " Quantum of Solace." Oh, and how could anyone forget the missile-launching, active-camouflaging Vanquish from "Die Another Day"? View 61 Photos If we're being honest, though, there's only one Aston Martin that is truly exemplary of Bond, and that's the DB5 from "Goldfinger." It's timelessly cool, has all the gadgets, and keeps reappearing in more recent Bond films. As such, there would be no better place to start for a Lego James Bond car kit. And, since the kit will be a Creator Expert series model, we can imagine it having functioning gadgets such as the revolving license plates and the ejector seat. Man, this kit could be so cool. Hopefully we don't have to wait long to see all the details. Related Video: Image Credit: Aston Martin, RM Sotheby's Toys/Games TV/Movies Aston Martin Coupe Performance Classics Lego