Adrian Newey is one of the most famous engineers in all of the world. The man behind some of the most successful F1 cars ever, he was on hand at the Goodwood Festival of Speed to debut the Red Bull RB17, a 1,200 horsepower slot car from Red Bull Advanced Technologies that was designed under Newey and will cost about $7.5 million a pop. What does one drive to the debut of their own wild hypercar? The other wild hypercar they built.
The Aston Martin Valkyrie was a $3.4 million tie-up between Aston Martin and Red Bull, with numerous similarities to the RB17, including a high-revving Cosworth-sourced engine, hybrid powertrain, extreme aerodynamics, and an almost impossibly small cockpit. It is the first car not from a partnership.
There are a few differences, however, including the fact that the RB17 is decidedly track-only. Unless you’re the big cheese in some sultanate, you can only drive an RB17 on private roads. The sold-out Valkyrie, however, is a little different. It was designed and built for the road, featuring some delightful details like a legally required CHIMSL (safety light) that’s only large enough to fit the CE (Certified in Europe) logo and a front badge that’s extraordinarily thin (40 microns thick) and made out of aluminum.
As one of the designers of the car, Newey scored his own version of the car and decided to drive it to Goodwood. This isn’t a huge surprise as one of the pastimes of the Goodwood Festival of Speed is to show up in the wildest car imaginable. There were rare Zagato twin-tails, steam-powered trucks, and even a turbo diesel Chrysler Voyager. Cars you’d only expect to see in your dreams, driven on Southern England roads.
Newey’s Valkyrie was legit dirty. Road-crusted. A work of art that’s somehow more real because it’s been covered in street grime and not, as supercars are at most events of this type, waxed to a degree usually reserved for Only Fans. That’s not the Goodwood spirit. This isn’t a place for trailer queens.
“This really defines Goodwood… get your supercar dirty,” Beau said, as he nibbled his delicious ice cream in front of Newey’s car. (Side note: The other thing that defines Goodwood is a preponderance of establishments selling ice cream. There are three ice cream trucks/stalls/gelaterias for every person. It’s still cold here!)
But all those road-driven super/hyper/sports cars are usually parked in the tony Ton Club parking area, the supercar paddock, or even in the Red Bull paddock. Newey didn’t park in any of those places. Nope. According to witnesses, he literally just drove his exceedingly rare, barely road-legal Aston right up to a wide spot of sidewalk in front of the Singer display and the Veuve Clicquot tent.
He then tossed a parking pass on the planchette-sized dash and walked to the press conference with Gordon Ramsey, Christian Horner, and hundreds of rabid fans.
That is remarkable. So far as I could tell, he had the normal gate access pass that we had for our Renault van. There are approximately as many security guards as there are ice cream shacks and none of them are too impressed by most vehicles, almost gleefully stopping Ferraris and telling them to turnaround.
That Newey was able to just casually park in front of a bunch of paid stands with nothing more than a hastily placed gate pass and assume that his car wouldn’t get messed with was quite impressive and goes to show just how much status you get when your cars when 14 world championships.
It doesn’t hurt that the car is spectacular.
Every time I see a slur wide across a title or a title picture I divide my article grading by two, hoping for it to be four times better than expected so I can enjoy that x2 yummy article.
Here’s for a x0.5 article (I was tempted to start with a 0.5 meh times 1/2 anyway but I failed both the Turing test and 7th grade math so I kept it easy for me to re-read, as 0.25 has always scared me as it only looks like 1/4 of a tank).
Ummm yeah… you can park here mate
Cronch cronch cronch…
5 minutes later, a Dodge Challenger R/T Scat Pack slammed into after during a burnout for a social media post. #carshow #mopar #15.25APR
<<<cone crunching intensifies>>>
Man, I’d have a lot less complaints about my inconsiderate neighbors if they parked something that awesome blocking my driveway instead of their crapbox Ford Escape.
Why does Red Bull Give Us No Flicks?
The last 30 seconds of that video is what makes The Autopian so great.
“There were rare Zagato twin-tails, steam-powered trucks, and even a turbo diesel Chrysler Voyager.”
David Tracey melted into a puddle of goo…
i wonder if it was the uber rare Zagato Voyager?
I figured David Tracy flew to Blighty and drove his van or had one of the brothers that helped him out drive it over there.
The voyager lives in Germany, IIRC, so he can just drive it through the Chunnel or take a boat between Germany and the UK.
*drive from Germany to France or The Netherlands then take a boat. Germany does have access to the sea, but it’s very much the long way around.
Personally I’d take the chunnel, it’s not everyday you get to drive onto a train, which then goes underneath the ocean.
“it’s been covered in street grime and not, as supercars are at most events of this type, waxed to a degree usually reserved for Only Fans”
The moment you recognise an Autopian article as unmistakable Autopian. Please never change.
It’s great to see Beau embody the Torch spirit while Torch gets healthy back at home. It’s also nice to see evidence of why Beau and JT get a long so well!
I love how like the last ~20 seconds of the video is just the Autopian crew eating ice cream. >D
yes what a good vid
“OnlyFans” is one word… is my understanding… from a friend, so… yeah.
I dunno. I’m gonna have to look into this and get back to you.
Why not help out your “friend” & drop her OF link here?
;->
Around 20 years ago I was filling up and a Viper pulled up on the opposite side of the pump. It was filthy. He cleaned the windshield and didn’t wipe the dirty water dripping down onto the car kinda filthy.
I made some comment about it being the dirtiest Viper I’d ever seen and he said something to the effect of “I’m too busy driving it to care”.
I know a Viper isn’t an ultra rare super car, but it was great to see one just being used and enjoyed regularly.
After a pretty good snowstorm in Chicago, I saw a red Ferrari 308 in a downtown parking lot that was covered in snow and salt streaks with ice crusted behind the wheel wells.
About a month ago when I was returning from the airport with my girlfriend, I got to drive alongside an incredibly dirty Murcielago for a few minutes. It was an absolute joy to see it wasn’t some garage queen.
goes to show just how much status you get when your cars when 14 world championships.
When what?
Second “when” should clearly be “win”.
Just so long as he didn’t park too close to another car, it should be alright.
What an entitled jerk. I hope they towed it, preferably without a flatbed truck.
You dropped your /s buddy
I was kidding a bit. They should have used a flatbed. But otherwise, this is not ok. There were hundreds of uniquely cool cars and hundreds of talented people there. Per the article, he had no special permission to park there for the event.
Why does he get a pass? Next year dozens of self-important people will try to park anywhere, yelling “Do you know who I am??? Do you know how expensive my car is?!?” and then the event loses some of what makes it special.
Dude. It is Goodwood Festival of Speed. Everybody who is here, came here to see crazy shit like Adrian Newey parking a Red Bull hypercar in the way of everything.
The event isn’t losing what makes it special. This is what makes the event special in the first place. Special car people, in special cars, doing special car things. That’s the point of Goodwood. And you have missed the point to a catastrophic degree.
Pretty good odds that Mr. Newey personally knows the Duke of Richmond.
This is the correct take. Similar to past years when the wildest super/hypercars from “Fuel Run” showed up in Carmel during Car Week and would just park 15-20 deep right in the middle of Ocean Avenue. Traffic was stopped for blocks in every direction. The folks driving behind them just had to wait for 30-40 min (divided rd so no turning around). It was an incredible experience every time it happened. it was not a scheduled event or even technically legal to block the street for half an hour, but I didn’t see a single person complaining.
Entitled how? It’s awesome. He left this rare car here in a spot where it was wide and easy to get around and people could come check out the car. No rope. No guards. He just left it out. That’s great.
Agree and disagree here. It is an incredible car, and he has achieved a lot, no doubt. But that doesn’t give him the right to blatantly ignore the rules of polite society, or even the rules the organizers set for the event. Just makes the working people’s jobs harder.
The FoS takes place in Lord March’s garden.
This isn’t in anyones’ way, or making any working people suffer.
Did your wife just move out or something?
Probably a bit of home field advantage as well, being a primarily British brand at Britain’s biggest car event.
I’m just going to park my nuts here…