Cosworth is pretty excited to be developing the
6.5-liter V12 engine that will reside in the Aston Martin Valkyrie and it
appears their exuberance has got the best of them. In a since-deleted tweet, which
Road & Track managed to get a screenshot of, the company boasted “We’re
famous for breaking records and our latest engine, the Aston Martin Valkyrie
6.5-liter V12, will be the world’s most powerful naturally aspirated road
engine with 1130 bhp.”
That’s a massively impressive figure for a naturally
aspirated engine, but it could be a bit deceiving. When Aston Martin unveiled
the Valkyrie AMR Pro at the Geneva Motor Show earlier this year, they confirmed
the car would have a hybrid powertrain that develops more than 1100 bhp. The automaker went on to say this figure is more than what will be
available in the road-going Valkyrie and it will allow the model to have a
better than 1:1 power-to-weight ratio.
This seems to suggest the engine won’t actually
produce 1130 bhp by itself. Instead, it appears the engine
will work with the hybrid system to develop the aforementioned output. This
idea matches up with a previous report which suggested the engine will only
produce around 1,000 bhp, while the rest of the power will
be provided by the car’s hybrid system.
That’s just a rumor at this point, but it’s still
possible that the Valkyrie could have the most powerful naturally aspirated
engine in a road-going model. That record is currently being held by the
Ferrari 812 Superfast which has a 6.5-liter V12 that cranks out 789 bhp. Assuming the earlier report is correct, the Valkyrie’s engine would
have around 211 hp more.
