CARS GLOBALMAG August 2016 | Page 38

NEVER SEEN BEFORE David King: “Working at Aston Martin means you get to be a part of some truly special projects, but the AMRB 001 is a dream - a true once-in-alifetime opportunity. Of course it’s a huge engineering challenge, too, but the gamechanging objectives of this programme have a uniquely energising effect on everyone involved. We have world-class people and facilities at Gaydon. We’re all motivated to achieve great things and take Aston Martin to the absolute pinnacle of road car performance” The three men charged with realising this shared vision are  Adrian Newey,Red Bull Racing’s Chief Technical Officer and the world’s most successful F1TM designer, Marek Reichman, Aston Martin EVP and Chief Creative Officer and David King, VP and Chief Special Operations Officer. Together they spearhead a formidable alliance. Reichman and Newey are working closely on all aspects of the project, striving to ensure the AM-RB 001 is an unprecedented fusion of form and function: a car engineered to be entirely useable and enjoyable as a road car, but with the capability to perform like no road car before it on a race track. For those who crave an even more intensely focused driving experience, a track-only AM-RB 001 is also in development, the projected performance of which is in line with that of today’s LMP1 Le Mans sports prototypes. Built around a lightweight carbon fibre structure, the AM-RB 001 boasts truly radical aerodynamics for unprecedented levels of downforce in a road-legal car. Thanks to the genius of Newey’s design much of this downforce is generated through underfloor aerodynamics, leaving Reichman free to craft a pure yet breathtaking dramat ic form that elegantly expresses both the AM-RB 001’s cutting-edge dynamism and the unmistakable essence of Aston Martin.