Exclusive: up close with Aston's 800bhp Vulcan

Vulcan. Now that's a name. That's a name that would have us fizzing inappropriately if it were stuck to a new vacuum cleaner, never mind a new Aston Martin. A new Aston Martin, we should point out, that's powered by an 800bhp-plus, normally aspirated V12, and will exist in a limited run of just 24 cars. A fire-breathing Aston. "It has side-exiting exhausts," says Aston design director Marek Reichman, with a tangible sense of mischief. "They make a sound that doesn't just make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, it curls them and then dissolves them. On each downshift, 200mm of flame is going to erupt from those..."

Reichman is no stranger to the pages of TopGear, and has talked us animatedly through every highway and byway of the modern Aston Martin story since he landed at the company over a decade ago. As that's included several Bond cars, a handful of gorgeous one-offs, the One-77 hypercar and most recently the DP100 Gran Turismo virtual car, this lanky Yorkshireman has learned to temper the hyperbole. But not today. "This has been a really, really, really really fun project," he says. "One that gets you out of bed earlier, and makes you think, ‘I love life.'"

This feature originally appeared in the March 2015 issue of Top Gear magazine.

We're standing in the workshop annex of Aston's glassy design studio, having to talk at a volume level just shy of uncomfortable to overcome the sound of the three rapid prototyping machines throbbing away in the corner. In the middle of the room stands a full-size, partially finished clay model of the Vulcan. Even in its currently half-baked form, it still packs enough drama to have your jaw hurtling into the floor. Three little letters: WTF?

Aston doesn't do cartoonish cars, but the Vulcan deliberately pushes the limits in all sorts of ways. It looks like something a Pixar superhero would use to kick villainous animated butt. At just 1186mm tall, it's the lowest car in the company's history, lower than the already crazily proportioned One-77, lower than any of its racing cars. It's long, too, and there's an enormous, absurdly brilliant wing perched on its rear end. The roof and glass effectively morph into one unit, and the whole thing blasts Aston in a wilfully futuristic new direction. It's practically sci-fi, except that, unlike the DP100, it's real. Or at least as real as a limited-series, track-only car costing £1.5m (plus taxes) can ever be for those of us sadly deficient when it comes to secret Swiss bank accounts.

Reichman anticipates my next question. "Yes, there are hints of our future design direction," he says with a sighing smile. "The next DB9 will remain the gentleman's express - the ‘tuxedo of speed'. The Vulcan points to a possible sports car. Though we started off with the DBR9, it's the Vantage that's developed into a successful racing car. That's always been our most direct and pointed car." In other words, along with the CC100 concept and the Lagonda Taraf mega-saloon, the Vulcan is a bridge between this Aston world and the next. As well as entertaining the hell out of 24 very lucky individuals, it'll inure us to some next-generation design thinking. It's an 800bhp laboratory, in which the essence of 2018's Vantage is being distilled.

That said, the car's surface language is a clear evolution of the Vanquish, with lines intersecting in the door before resolving in a pronounced set of hips. The Vulcan is also beautifully waisted, and there's an inverted shark's fin panel behind the front wheelarch, whose function is to prevent a high-pressure area from building up. Marek, more than most car designers, insists on a significant art component to his work, "a dark art in this case," he adds. The company collaborates with Canadian carbon-fibre supplier Multimatic; judging by the shape of the Vulcan, they love a challenge.

Aston is also working closely with a bunch of ex-Formula One guys to improve its aero solutions, and has become adept in Computational Fluid Dynamics, a different sort of black art, but one that means that the air flows round the Vulcan in the way you'd firmly hope as you head into Eau Rouge. You don't need to be Adrian Newey to know that a 7.0-litre V12 is going to need some serious cooling, which explains the huge holes in the Vulcan's bonnet. But a closer inspection reveals all sorts of clever filigree aero touches. The front end is this close to a full-on LMP1 car, while somehow hanging onto the trademark Aston face. Track cars need minimal lights, but the Vulcan's LEDs underline its menace. (Interestingly, Marek talks about "hidden-until-lit" illumination as a coming trend - lights secreted behind bodywork.) The rear diffuser is brutally functional by comparison, but still a magnificent modernist piece of sculpture in its own right. The rear lights are stunning: 30 individual orange light pipes that glow red.

As well as promising high visual and aural drama, those side-exiting exhausts also keep the rear end free of plumbing, leaving the diffuser to do its thing more or less unmolested.

The Vulcan uses the same carbon tub as the One-77, but so extensively modified, Aston claims, as to be effectively a new structure. Everything is made of carbon fibre, including the roof, and the Vulcan runs a full FIA roll cage. In fact, it meets all the criteria for an invitation race series, except that giventhe myriad ‘balance of performance' regulations, it would wipe the floor with virtually all the competition.

Which brings us to an important question. If you're creating a track-only car that's ostensibly more extreme than some current pure-bred racing cars, how do you ensure your client base has the cojones to handle it? Darren Turner, friend-of-TG and endurance racing driver ace, is the Vulcan's human ‘control'. Every driver has their peccadilloes when it comes to set-up, but it's Darren's job to arrive at as neutral and accessible a chassis balance as possible. Aston's racing cars are pretty friendly, so despite its fearsome appearance, and flaming 800bhp, the Vulcan shouldn't bite.

Should the talent/money equation be overly lopsided, however, Vulcan clients will first enjoy a Vantage GT4 immersion before being let loose in their new toy. And even then, a control switch on the cockpit will initially limit them to 500bhp. Reichman acknowledges that, as with the One-77, some of Aston Martin's heavyweight clients are happy to leave their cars as part of their collection. "While that's perfectly possible with the Vulcan," he adds, "it would be a shame because it's highly capable." Not to mention missing out on a bunch of global track days with like-walleted Aston aficionados.

Darren Turner is also integral to the Vulcan's remarkable cockpit, which is a good deal more Tron: Legacy than it is David Brown's. Those huge prototyping machines are printing out new bits for the interior buck during TG's visit, but for our money the Vulcan's interior outpaces the McLaren P1 GTR's or Ferrari's FXXK in terms of sheer theatre. A fully configurable TFT screen sits in the driver's eyeline, while a row of ancillary switchgear is angled aggressively towards him. The windscreen curves around like a helmet visor, with the tops of the front wings prominently in view to help position the car. The steering wheel mimics the shape and look of a contemporary F1 car's, but the Vulcan uses standard indicator stalks because, says Turner, that's simply where most drivers expect to find them. Good point.

Quite clearly, all involved are having the time of their lives dreaming this stuff up, though even that experience won't be a patch on the lucky devils who'll get to tailor the end product entirely to their specification. It certainly beats booking the penthouse of The Dorchester for a month.

Now back to that name. The Vulcan was a cold war-era RAF bomber, charged with carrying Britain's nuclear ‘deterrent'. One of the air bases it flew regular sorties from was Gaydon, which Aston Martin's Warwickshire HQ now just happens to be right next door to. And if you've ever heard a Vulcan's Rolls-Royce Olympus jet engines in max thrust mode, you'll know full well that it's perfectly possible for machines to have soul. The new Aston Martin could not be better named.