The Aston Martin Vulcan is the Aston Martin that answered a simple question — how much car can this badge carry? — with 831 PS @ 7,750 rpm from 6949 cc Aston Martin naturally-aspirated V12. It was built from 2015 to 2016, as electrification stopped being an experiment and the crossover took every market. The shape is credited to Marek Reichman. 24 were built.
How it came about
The Aston Martin Vulcan is a two-door, two-seat, high-performance lightweight track-only car launched in 2015 by British luxury automobile manufacturer Aston Martin at the 2015 Geneva Motor Show. The Vulcan was designed by Aston Martin's creative officer Marek Reichman, taking inspiration from then-current Aston Martin models such as the Vantage, the DB9 and the One-77.
Production totaled 24 cars, one for each hour at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, with each priced at US$2.3 million. One was included with the penthouse of Aston Martin Residences tower in Miami.
The hardware
The engine is 6949 cc Aston Martin naturally-aspirated V12; the output is 831 PS @ 7,750 rpm. On the scales it comes to 1350-1360 kg. That is roughly 616 horsepower per tonne: hypercar territory, where the limiting factor is the tyre, not the engine. Drive goes through a 6-speed sequential. The layout matters: the engine sits behind the driver and ahead of the rear axle, which puts the mass in the middle of the car and is why mid-engined cars change direction the way they do. The wheelbase is 2791 mm. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Family and rivals
In the Aston Martin line-up the Aston Martin Vulcan has a clear place: the factory was Gaydon, Warwickshire, United Kingdom. The cars a buyer would have weighed it against include the Ferrari 488, the McLaren 570S, the McLaren 650S. Its Aston Martin stablemates include the Aston Martin Mark II and the Aston Martin V12 Vantage GT3.