Valkyrie

Segment
Coupe

When it comes to the Aston Martin Valkyrie, top speed is not the name of the game. That's in stark contrast to the Bugatti Chiron's main selling point, which touts massive performance and ultra-luxurious appointments to sell customers the most exclusive four-wheeled rocket that money can buy. On the other hand, Aston Martin and Red Bull's Formula One engineers will focus on almost everything but top speed for the Valkyrie, as CNBC found during an interview with Patrik Nilsson, Aston Martin's Asia Pacific President.

Instead, the Valkyrie will be like an F1 car, championing dynamics over stable world record-winning runs in a straight line. "We're not focused on maximum top speed. We are focused on how dynamic the car is," Nilsson said. "Much like in Formula One, the winning car is the one that brakes the quickest, goes around the corner the quickest, and accelerates the quickest. Not necessarily the one with top speed." To pull this off, the Valkyrie has to be built like an actual F1 car, meaning it will be designed specifically for its driver. That job entails more than custom colors and optional gizmos from Aston Martin's in-house custom shop-Q- because the British automaker is intent on making the Valkyrie fit like a glove when in the middle of a high speed corner.

To do that, Aston Martin will 3-D scan the bodies of its Valkyrie buyers in order to form a seat that fits them perfectly. If personal health wasn't a convincing enough reason to stick to the fitness routine, maybe fitting into your $3.2 million hypercar is. That level of precision and rigidity may sound extreme for a car that originates from one of the most renown manufacturers of comfortable grand tourers, but hey, anything for a better lap time right? "It's a road car, but we're talking about an extreme performance car," said Nilsson. Extreme is right, as Jeremy Clarkson proved when taking the Aston Martin Vulcan out for a spin, because getting inside the cockpit required extreme acrobatics. Expect the Valkyrie to be no different.