The Aston Martin Valhalla: And it is street-legal, too

Meeting Ondrej Jirec trackside at Circuito de Navarra in Spain, you are immediately struck by the contrast between the man and the machine. While the Valhalla crouches on the asphalt —looking every bit the predatory hypercar—Jirec is exceptionally polite, grounded, and soft-spoken. But don't let the modesty fool you. His boss, Aston Martin’s Chief Creative Officer Marek Reichman, put it bluntly when we spoke: “Ondrej is a genius. You can quote me on that." Standing by the "living object" as engines roar in the distance, Jirec walked us through a car that manages to look like a prototype racer while remaining globally road-legal.

Ondrej, we know the Aston Martin Valkyrie as an extreme, uncompromising hypercar derived from racing. What was the core idea when you started the Valhalla project?

Ondrej Jirec: We asked ourselves: What if we took the coolest things about the Valkyrie — the Formula 1 feel, the seating position, and the technical dominance — and made them more accessible? The Valhalla is a global car. It combines comfort and beauty with technical excellence. We wanted to create a universe resting on two pillars: ultra-luxury and high performance.

How do you translate two such different worlds into one visual language?

You can see it immediately in the car’s division into two zones. It’s a dual-tone concept. The painted surfaces represent beauty and luxury — we treat them like a work of art. There are no cuts, no door handles, no visible air intakes there. All the technical elements happen in the carbon zone. We call the light areas Formed by Nature and the black carbon areas Controlling Nature, because they harness the airflow for downforce and cooling.

That sounds like a tough battle between designers and aerodynamic engineers. Were there moments where design almost compromised function?

You have to understand the needs of the technology to solve them aesthetically. A good example is the Rear Haunch. We desperately wanted an absolutely clean surface without intakes there. The engineers told us: "Then we won't get any cooling." Together, we found a solution: a tunnel now runs right through the door behind the cladding. This increased the efficiency of the oil coolers by 50 percent without us having to ruin the beautiful sculpture by adding holes.

The Valhalla is the first mid-engine sports car in Aston Martin's core lineup. How does that change your work as a designer compared to a classic GT like the Vantage?

It changes everything! A GT car emphasizes the long hood; it looks elegant and leaned back. A mid-engine car must look like it’s ready to pounce at any moment. It’s in "attack mode." The proportion is a wedge: low at the front, high at the back.

You have a background in fine arts. To what extent does that influence your vision of a 1,000-hp hybrid hypercar?

I attended art school in Prague before going to Los Angeles to study Transportation Design. For me, Aston Martin is the perfect brand because it combines these two worlds. In my spare time, I often do "concept art" — cars on steroids, Star Wars level.

Star Wars? Do we find any of that in the Valhalla?

Perhaps not a specific component, but the mindset. In movies, you often only see a vehicle for two or three seconds. In that time, the design must be so strong that you immediately understand it and remember it. The same applies to the Valhalla: when you see it at the other end of the racetrack, the graphic separation between the bodywork and carbon is so iconic that you identify it instantly. It has to burn into your mind like a good song.

There are details on the Valhalla that you would sooner expect on a Le Mans prototype — for example, the see-through opening in the front fender. How do you get something like that through road homologation?

(laughs) That’s the secret. It looks like it should be illegal, but it is globally road-legal. You have to know the rules very precisely to be able to interpret them. Take the diffuser or the visibility of the rear tires: normally, that would be impossible due to impact regulations. But we worked with the Aston Martin F1 team. They found a way to curve the bumper supports and reinforce them with a metal honeycomb structure so that the sculptural form became possible without sacrificing safety. It’s a show car for the road.

We’re seeing the car here today in a very technical configuration. But your customers love using the Q by Aston Martin department to realize their own dreams. Are there actually any limits to personalization for the Valhalla?

Almost none. With Q, you can go completely wild. It’s exciting to see how differently the car can look. In a modern ‘’Andromeda red’’ it looks like a spaceship, but if a customer chooses a classic Aston Martin teal with a cream interior, it suddenly becomes the rightful heir to a DB5 Volante. Enabling this range without losing the aggressive base form was a major task.

Anyone who knows the Valkyrie knows: it’s a race car with a license plate — you almost need headphones to talk in the cockpit. Is the Valhalla civilized by comparison?

Let’s put it this way: you no longer need internal communication headsets in the Valhalla to understand the person next to you. We wanted these 999 cars to actually be driven — and often. Entry is much easier than in the Valkyrie. In the Valhalla, we have dihedral doors that lift part of the roof with them. But don’t underestimate it: with over 1,000 hp, it accelerates like a race car. It’s more accessible, yes, but the drama and raw power of a true internal combustion engine are still at its heart.

Last question: if you had the keys for an entire weekend, where would your first trip take you?

Straight home to my son. He’s three years old now. I’d show him what his dad worked on. He loves cars, even if he’ll probably still need ear protection at the volume levels in Goodwood this year!