WORLD's FIRST DRIVE in New Aston Martin VALOUR!

Sometimes you stumble into a hidden jewel that you weren't quite expecting, and today we have done exactly that, visiting RFX Collection to drive the Aston Martin Valor. Hi guys, I'm Shmee, hello, and welcome back to the channel, where you join me to take a look around a collection that I have to be honest has kind of blown me away, that I didn't really expect, featuring some amazing Aston Martin Continuation cars, plenty of exceptional Ferraris, along with some amazing and unusual classics and German cars that stand out, but today, thanks to the owner of this amazing place, we're here to see this, Aston Martin's new, limited edition, incredible, manual, retro-inspired, I think we can call it hypercar, the Aston Martin Valor. Now, where do we begin? Because we have to take a little look around. There are actually a few new cars waiting for delivery that we're going to come back to see, but I can't be here and not show you a small part of the RFX Collection before getting a bit more into this. Now, you might have seen Gordon Ramsay recently took delivery of another of the 110 Aston Martin Valors. In fact, and I'm going to quote this, an article in the Sun newspaper, when a picture was posted by his daughter, Holly, featuring the Valor, quoted it as being a £200,000 car. Nearly an extra zero on the end of that, but we'll talk more about that later on. This particular example is stunning, and I have parked it alongside the V12 Speedster for a reason. Not only these two, but the Collection also comprises a Valkyrie, an inbound Valkyrie Spider, a few others, plus this trio. I don't think I've ever seen this trio together. The Continuation Series cars that began with the DB4 GT, then the DB4 GT Zagato, and most recently the DB5 Goldfinger, of which I did get to drive the prototype on a very special outing. But a lot of Aston Martin's history links to this, a traditional name starting with a V. Let's take a look around before we're going to be taking it out. And oh, I should probably mention this is an incredible collection. Everything from a BMW M3 CRT, which is exceptionally rare, through an SLS AMG Black Series, Porsche 2.7 Carrera RS, a pair of Aston Martin DBS 770 Ultimates, the Coupe and the Volante, also a new Alfa Romeo Giulia GTAM with the painted livery, and so much more that we are definitely going to have to come back and see. But for now, to the Valor. Somehow I need to completely ignore the fact that right now there's a Porsche 906 which, by the way, the engine of that went into the 914 8, fun little personal connection, the Carrera GT next to it, the likes of the Limited Ferraris, Speciale, Pista, GTO, F12 TDF, 812 Competizione, the Continuation cars, and these two. And what's fascinating to me, in fact, having a V12 Speedster right alongside the Valor, is that these are in many ways a shared platform. They're both the Vantage chassis V12 engine, but done completely differently. Now, the V12 Speedster, limited to 88 cars, had launched before. This is actually the incredibly rare Maverick specification, so the painted dual-tone light metallic blue paintwork with the brighter blue accents, plus, coming a little bit closer very quickly, because of the link to originally having been intended to be in the Top Gun movie, you've got the painted jets, obviously like on the planes, you've got Captain Pete Mitchell, Maverick on there, plus at the back the helmets that are stored away inside, and the United States style badging for the Aston Martin wings. But today is not about that car per se, it is about this, which celebrates 110 years of Aston Martin. The company was founded back in 1913, this was introduced in 2023, 110 cars for 110 years. The big thing about it, however, is the inside. If I open up the door of this, very, very delicately, basically a brand new car, and you can see the manual shifter. To have a 5.2 litre twin-turbocharged V12 engine with a six-speed manual was a big deal when this was introduced, but not only that, it's the retro throwback styling. Every element of it, but mixed with modern technologies and detail, so of course full carbon fibre bodywork, full carbon fibre roof and rear window cover. Come around towards the front, you've got this boomerang shape, reminiscent of, well, plenty of Aston Martin's former cars. The knacker ducts up there as well stand out to me a lot, but it's this front end, throwback to 80s vantages or what, but with this modern full LED headlight, obviously inspired by the styling of earlier cars, such an iconic grille shape and such squared off styling cues that to me just work. I think this thing looks amazing. They had made the Victor as a one-off, kind of taking a 177 prototype with a manual box, but similar styling. I'm actually going to pop open the engine, and then there was so much, it's on the other side, pop open the engine bay cover, there was so much acclaim for Victor, people absolutely loved it, that customers basically said, please can you make one of those, and Aston Martin went on to release this, if I can just grab that catch, we'll take a look inside in a moment, because, you know, in the modern day the DB12 has now gone V8, yes, okay, a very potent, very powerful engine, but this is what it's about, and just look at that, 715 horsepower from the power plant sitting beneath that carbon fibre engine cover, 753 newton meters of torque, more than enough for a manual box, full carbon fibre front clamp, the entirety of this is visual carbon fibre on the underside, it looks really, really nice inside that engine bay, and just the shapes, the way it comes down over the top of the headlights is very, very cool, so to be here today taking a look at this, with an opportunity in a moment to start it and take it out, it's quite phenomenal, and I'm quite excited to be able to share with you what it's like, with huge thanks to the owner, I can't help but feel we need to take a quick look, let's do it, let's have a quick cheeky look at what's around, and then let's get this started. This is the showroom side of this private collection, we can take a quick whiz around, the Ford GT, 812 Comp, DB4 GT Zagato, DB4 GT, DB5 Continuation, 906 Carrera GT, AMG GTR, we've then got a pair of 930 turbos, that's actually a Targa with a turbo body, 997 Sport Classic, there are only 250 of those, 901.1 GT3 RS Martini, Monza SP2, Ford GT, Aventador SVJ 63 edition, the 812 GTS is a lovely spec, SF90, F12, 512 BBI, 328, 348, 599 GTO, 488 GTB, F12 TDF, 488 Pista, and the 458 Speciale, not bad, we're going to have to stay tuned for the rest though, because today is all about this, and even the styling at the back, I mean look at this thing, these tail lights, the way they did the design of this, and this paint colour in particular, it's called Verde Jade, it was introduced with the Valhalla, one of the original concepts of Valhalla, and with the gold flipping to this pastel green metallic, with all the yellows and orange hues that you get in it, depending on the light, it suits it really quite well, this carbon rear deck has a camera for the internal screen, and then inside, to show you a little bit more, look at this, the way this is finished, the green leather against the full carbon fibre door cards, the squared off steering wheel that Aston Martin did first with the 177, we then have the carbon fibre seats with the leather inserts, carbon central tunnel, this thing is stunning, the details and the way all of these different pieces are presented, and then crucially, a third pedal, long live the manual! The Aston Martin Valor, here we are, in a car that I have been looking forward to driving, and I've now had a few kilometres at the wheel, and this thing is special, very very special, now at the moment, I'm just starting in the softest suspension setting, we're in regular sport mode for the powertrain, you've got the switches on the steering wheel, and we'll go through some of those settings, but having driven the V12 Vantage Roadster, of course a number of Vantage based models, and also ridden in the V12 Speedster, this is a surprisingly different car, okay, ignoring the obvious, the fact that we have a six-speed manual, which the others do not, they have the eight-speed ZF automatic, it's a totally different refinement experience, as we blip down some of the gears, the engine is warm, the noises, the sounds, start going up through the revs, of course it's this 5.2 litre twin turbocharged V12, which arrived with the DB11, has featured in the DBS, has featured in a number of different cars, until of course now, the V8s, and don't get me wrong, the V8, which is sourced from AMG, is an amazing engine, but this is Aston Martin's, it's a big change from the previous six litre naturally aspirated power plants, but still, it's a 12-cylinder, and you feel the burbles, the noises, the sounds that are going on from it, the torque as well especially, and it's a deep, grumbly engine, it's not a revvy engine like the Ferrari V12, it goes up to 7,000 rpm at the redline, but you have a really nice feel to it, and with this gearbox, which just moves so seamlessly from one gear to the next, so smoothly, so gently, so easily, it's a delight to drive, it feels much more refined and classy, I want to say, even than the other family member cars, there are no funny noises or sounds around us, everything is very forgiving and compliant, the ride quality is super smooth, even on some of the rougher roads that I've been driving over, the clutch is fairly light and easy going, the steering has a great weight to it though, so it feels like a rewarding driving experience, but a very, very different driving experience to that which you get, for example, in my GT8, which is also a manual Aston Martin limited edition special car, that being the naturally aspirated V8, this of course being the big brother, now the Sun, as I mentioned earlier, said it's a £200,000 car, but you immediately feel like it's that plus a zero on the end, which it approximately is, depending on specification options, trim etc, and how the customer goes for it, which is the experience you have with Q, you can go to Gaydon, or of course you can do it remotely, but as we now go up into Sport Plus, of course things will get a little bit more lively, the way that you downshift it, and it just drops straight to the next gear, with some surprisingly good bubbles and crackles and bangs out of the exhaust system behind that you get from this, it's a really, really smooth driving experience, I'm just enjoying going up and down through the gears, it's a very unusually large shift knob that you have on the manual shifter, but a very rewarding feeling when it goes from one to the next, and you appreciate that you're driving something really special, you're driving something that has some emotion behind it, right, that has some engineers that developed it, that wanted to make a car that's just really cool, and from a design point of view, done, from a driving point of view, it feels mega, but not intimidating, not scary, a lot of very valuable cars, you can hop into them and feel a little bit out of your comfort zone very quickly, and the thing in here is, I want to say that that's not really a thing, it feels a lot bigger than its siblings for some reason, it feels bigger than the V12 Vantage or the V12 Speedster, despite the fact that it is the same platform, it is the same wheelbase, okay, arguably the bodywork is a touch longer because of the overhangs front and rear, but it's such an easy-going car, it's not a clutch like a Carrera GT that you think you're going to stall every two seconds, all those pops on liftoff as you start to deliver more of the power, of course 12-cylinders aren't going to be forever, and Aston Martin has such a great history with amazing cars, with amazing engines, with amazing cars to drive, things like this, that you just want them to last and last and last, and to never end, to never finish, back on the throttle. We've got the Pilot Sport S5 tyres that Aston introduced with the DD12, also on the new Vantage, also on this, but this is a great setup, how we have it right now, I mean one thing I normally really like with the Aston gearbox I was just thinking about is that when you put it into manual it stays in manual, if you put it in with the paddles, and here that's not a problem, it's staying manual, it's all about you, you the driver, and that's something that so many modern cars lack and miss and just forget, that makes petrol heads get excited, and that's what Aston Martin have done with this, I mean listen to it, it's not obnoxiously loud, it's not GT8 loud, it doesn't have any irritating valves doing weird things to the sound, oh that was good, oh the downshifts are just beautiful, as we make our way through some smaller sleepy little villages here on a fairly busy day on the roads, I just like the way it pulls away, it has a hill hold, it does help you out with that because it's an electronic park brake, this is just one of those cars which is quite hard to explain because on paper it's similar to the Lamborghinis, it's kind of let's re-body it and charge a crazy amount of money and people will buy it, but you drive it and it's a different car, it's a different thing, it's a different experience and that makes it work, that makes it feel like something worth the price tag, and I'm not absolutely booting it, this is of course a brand new car, just enjoying the drive and trying to bring you along for this raw first drive experience of what it's like, so I haven't yet gone through the suspension settings, so sport plus, yeah you feel that's a lot firmer, and then track mode, yeah we don't want that, that's immediately juggling me around way too much on this particularly bumpy bit of road, if you go into track mode for the powertrain side and those controls are so brilliantly easily available, it's not going to sound I think particularly louder than it did in sport plus, sport plus already gives you the extra crackles and bangs and exciting noises, it's a familiar dashboard and perhaps that's the thing you could, if you wanted to critique this car to the max, the thing that you would comment on is the older infotainment, it doesn't have the system from the DB12 and the new Vantage, it has the systems that came before, which is by modern standards a little bit dated, it's a little bit old school for a car of this price tag, but it's more about the design, the connection, the passion, the feeling, the excitement of it, the fact that arguably you don't need it, this doesn't exist for a reason, Aston Martin wanted to celebrate 110 years of their extraordinary history and they did it by launching this, by presenting Valor and yet again bringing a new name, a V as per Valkyrie, Vantage, Valhalla, many great names in their history and another model into that lineup. While I sit here in some traffic towards the Autobahn, which will be quite fun in just a moment, the thing with this car is it's very much a GT, a Grand Tourer, the seats might be carbon fibre buckets but they still have electrical adjustment and in fact they have heating as well, which is something quite unusual, you have the electronic rear view camera as opposed to mirror, which once you've driven in a few different cars you get used to quite quickly, it's a slightly different perspective but fairly normal at the end of the day and the ride is just easy going, you know like this, sitting in traffic in some roadworks right now, following other cars, it's smooth, simple, stressed free and then you get to the signs that mean you can open it up a little bit more and all of a sudden it just becomes a very exciting, very raw driving experience, it's not raw in the sense of being too loud or too vibration-y or anything like that, just you as the driver connected to the car, you're involved with it, you're having fun with it, you're enjoying it, you know pop it up into sixth gear and it becomes a much smoother, more docile experience, it's very calm inside the cabin, you don't have a ton of wind noise or rattles or just different sounds or anything unusual or odd going on from it, drop it down again through these gears, the sounds are really, really good, I mean I've owned a Vanquish, a DBS, a pair of V8 Astons, so safe to say I'm a big fan of what they do and as we pull out here onto the Autobahn, no VMAX run right now but still an opportunity just to get higher in the rev range with a warm engine, as we're going to pull it out, try and find a gap in the traffic, it starts to just feel really, really cool, I mean the amount of torque as well, I'm in fourth gear at 130, it just pulls away easily, the Germany and the de-restricted Autobahn cruise at 200 kilometers per hour, about 125 miles per hour and actually for this speed it's really calm and doesn't have a particularly dramatic sense of acceleration up to that speed, like a lot of cars will make you think you're driving faster than you are, in here it feels very realistic, down to fourth gear, I might put it into track mode just quickly, just to experience what that's like, if there are any differences, about 5000 rpm, it's really torquey, it's really, really, really torquey, this is special to be driving this car right now, I mean this is really, really kicking off, an exciting time, I mean this year is already going phenomenally excitingly, but this is the Valor, which is, it's one of those cars that, like I say, when I first saw it, I was just immediately like, that thing is cool, that thing is pure cool, yes it's very expensive, but what it does is save the manuals, have some retro inspired design, you know, it's almost like Aston Martin making their own, I want to say resto mod, but using a modern platform or a throwback to the 80s, it's that kind of thing, but doing it in a new way, right, a new style, and you sit inside here, you've got all the carbon fibre around you, on the door cards, around the central console, but when it comes to the styling from the outside, it feels like taking an 80s car and drawing what the future would look like, and making something completely, completely bonkers, oh, the cracks when it gets warmer, you really do need to get to the top end of the rev range to get the power though, to get those turbos really spooled up and doing something, I'm going to pop it back into, Sport Plus feels like my setting for this, you get a slightly different digital display, colours change a little bit as you go through them, and then, yeah, I think even Sport Plus on the road is actually a little bit too firm, you want to keep the suspension, going to go all the way through the settings in regular sport mode, anything above sport mode is a little bit too aggressive for normal road driving, in my eyes, road is definitely getting a little bit busier today, can't believe I'm here driving this, one of 110 Aston Martin Valors, this is so cool, I love it, a huge thanks to RFX Collection for this opportunity, one of the 60, 70 cars, 80 cars maybe from the collection, but just a mega, mega special thing, really, really nice car to drive, back to the countryside lanes, this is by no means the fastest car out there, it's not trying to be, it's not trying to be a performance maestro, and it's one of the things I actually think that's great about electric cars, is that they've stopped the chase for absolute performance from combustion engines, it becomes so much more important that cars are about the experience, about the emotion, about the connection, and that's where this is really the epitome of that, this is saying, let's make, regardless of price tag, the most engaging car we can to drive on the road, and you drop down some gears, on the throttle, it makes some pops and bangs and burbles and all sorts of things, and just feels awesome, it just feels absolutely awesome, and that's what something like this should do, yes of course there are flaws, like I mentioned, the older infotainment system, it's also, while beautiful to have the exposed gear shift, slightly scary to me, because if you drop something in there, you're not getting it back, which is a funny one, and if you drop the fingers into the start button, which is a slightly unusual feeling as well, you need to basically push it rather than have your hand wrapped around the shift knob when you're going down into first gear, coming to a stop or something, but forget those, and forget the price tag, because at the end of the day, that is a whole separate topic, and you can see why there's so much interest in this when it launched, you can see why this is something that made everybody go a bit like, wow, that's super cool, and I've enjoyed driving this so much, today is just totally totally totally mega, just dropping it down a gear, playing with it, enjoying it, because long live the V12, long live the manual, long live cars like this. Well that just sounded absolutely ridiculous, that view in the camera is also ridiculous, we've got 360 cameras in fact in here as well, and what I was mentioning earlier about this area, when you pop the shifter, if you go into first here, let's say you have your fingers down there, you kind of bang them into the start button, I love how that looks, just, I mean look at it, being able to mechanically see what's going on without a gaiter around it, slots of carbon fibre absolutely everywhere, looks amazing, this is a bit old and out of date, I don't think anybody can defend that, the tablet just stuck onto the top of the dash and that's basically the only, let's say, drawback. Switch it off for now, the electric park brake is applied on this side, hear that coming on, you've got these lovely door pulls as well, and that's what I think this car is really about, you know, this full carbon door skin, the way this is meshed, or this mesh is created, the elements like that, just everything really beautifully presented, and also inside, if I just spin the camera around so you can see a bit, there's a ton of space behind, plus look at the headliner in here, finished in the familiar Aston Martin racing colours, the darker green with the lime essence detailing that you also have for the seat centre pull as well, it's just a very, very nice looking thing inside. Taking in all the details, of course the door seal plaque, 110, 1913, 2023, usual controls and things that I'm certainly familiar with, for example your seat controls are here, your three memory seat positions, these all feel a little bit aged, some of the plastic buttons that it has, and similarly to the original Vantage, there's just too many buttons for my liking, obviously something that's been resolved with the latest Vantage and DB12, rather than having all of these, you know, your camera, traction, SOS, different buttons, same here for your climate, there's just a lot of plastic buttons everywhere, you know, these things are nice, the rotary toggles, although they don't click as smoothly as you might like them to, but it's not about that, it's about this, it's about what it's like to drive, it's about what this is like to move, I like how when you put your foot on the brake, it illuminates that, ready for action, and that feels really good, like really good, reverse is there, what a thing, what a feeling, right, let me hop out, I think I mentioned earlier, of course for this, we've got the Pilot Sport 5S tyre, the AML designation, Aston Martin working with Michelin to make a tyre for the car, 275s at the front on 21 inch wheels, come around towards the back, and back here again, 21s but 325 wide, with this very intricate design that they went with for the wheels, in fact something that Aston Martin have done a number of times, making very complex designs for their wheels, I really love the carry-through of these taillights, that style that we've seen on a number of cars, including Valkyrie, and in fact on the topic of Valkyrie, isn't it amazing that Valkyrie is also a V12 hypercar, as is this, but so different, Valkyrie is the two-seat mid-engined track car, ultimate performance, this is the two-seat front-engined road car, the car to enjoy to the max out on the public highway, and look at the paint colour, I mean look at this shade as you go over it, the bronzer tones coming through that pastel green as I mentioned earlier, and I think what they did with the design around here at the front is probably my favourite bit, how they kept it very boxy, this horizontal line across the front nose, but still managed to bring in the familiar Aston Martin grille, the way you've got that shape wrapping round, which you see on all of the cars, of course the V12 Speedster, done in a very different way, in fact go back to the DB5, obviously this is the goldfinger continuation with all of the gadgets, but that same shape there, same shape again on the DB4, same shape throughout the whole of Aston Martin's history on all of the different cars, even the Valkyrie manages to bring it through a little as well, one thing that's interesting to note are the much larger badges, the wings badge on the nose has grown significantly, the new Aston Martin logo it changed in a minor way recently, and the same around towards the back, if we come back here you've got the Aston Martin script beneath the badge at the back, I mentioned as well this, it looks like these should be slats that you can see through, but of course there's no engine back here this is a full carbon rear hatch window, and in fact I'm just going to open it up, the button to do so is right in here, hold that, pop open the tailgate, because back here you do actually have a really good amount of luggage space, in fact of course we've got the Ctec charger here as well which all of the cars here are unsurprisingly residing on, got my bag, sorry that's a bit of a mess, bolt that shelf down, and you've got a really really usable amount of luggage space, which is something I like, because these cars are made for driving, and that very cool strut brace running across the back as well, plus leather strap for pulling it down, and these to hold in the umbrella that's actually supplied with the car as well, again exposed carbon fibre for all of the body work on this thing, I think it looks cool, and now that I've driven it I know that it's a cool thing to drive as well, I think I'm going to need to return back to visit RFX Collection in the future when let's say the Valkyrie Spider, DBR 22, maybe some of the others have arrived here in the collection, but today has really been about this, the Aston Martin Valor, and it's an interesting world isn't it, that so many of the cars now are based on emotive feelings, whether that's a singer you know the ultimate in reimagined 911, whether that's one of the Lamborghini cars like the new Countach, which again is to bring back the feeling of the original, or in this case Valor bringing back that iconic angular 80s Aston Martin design, but combining it with modern underpinnings and bringing to the table something that's so different from the other cars in Aston's lineup, and that's one of the things I'm really as I just said amazed by at the moment, that they managed to do this across the portfolio, this is more what you think of when you think of the brand Aston Martin than Valkyrie and Valhalla, this is the ultimate of that as a road-going special limited GT, 110 cars for, as I've mentioned, admittedly a very high price, perhaps at that price point you want there to only be 20 of them, or for 110 maybe a little lower, but as I've now experienced what you get for that money is something that's really nice to drive, it's a lovely lovely car, looks phenomenal, and will be in the future a very special piece, I mean it already is, so I'd like to say a huge thank you to RFX Collection for the opportunity to visit today and to be able to share with you something like this, you don't normally get to see and experience a car of this nature, I mean I think even Aston Martin haven't had drive opportunities with these, it's not a car that just sits on the press fleet like a DB12 or a Vantage for example, so what a stunning opportunity, a huge thanks, and I hope you've enjoyed the video, I hope you've enjoyed coming along to take a little look around and to see what the Aston Martin Valor is all about, that is of course it for now though, thank you very much for your support as always guys, I appreciate it an awful lot, and I look forward to seeing you again very soon, cheers!