Latest Car Extreme

The stunningly cool Aston Martin One 77 sports car is promoted as the quintessence of Aston Martin, a supercar that showcases its advanced engineering allied to hand-crafted finishing and the extensive use of exotic materials.

At its core is a rigid yet lightweight carbon-fibre monocoque. From this is hung the motorsport-style double wishbone suspension front and rear, employing pushrods to transfer vertical wheel movement to the horizontally mounted spring and damper units.

True to the £1m car's bespoke nature, the suspension will be tuned to the owner's precise requirements by Aston martin engineers.

The One-77’s 7.3-litre, naturally aspirated engine is an extreme evolution of the 6.0-litre V12 fitted to the DBS, DB9 and V12 Vantage. It has been developed in partnership with Cosworth. One-77 programme manger Chris Porritt said: “Our brief to the engine team was for them to take the 6.0-litre V12 as far as it could go, both in terms of output and weight reduction.

The targets were a power output of no less than 700bhp with a 10 per cent reduction in engine mass. Incredibly, the Aston Martin and Cosworth engineers achieved a mass reduction of some 25 per cent, and although we’ve yet to complete the final engine calibration work, I’m confident we’ll see in excess of 700bhp.”

Power is transmitted to the rear wheels via a new, six-speed robotised sequential gearbox, activated by steering wheel-mounted paddles.

With a projected weight of only 1,500kg, the One-77 should easily be capable of 200mph. Aston martin predicts a 0-60mph acceleration time of about 3.5 seconds.

Porritt added: “We wanted to create something that wows you as much when you see what’s under the skin as the exterior styling itself. We started by identifying the most technologically exciting front-engined, rear-wheel drive cars in the world: those from the DTM race series. We then applied the principles and technology that feature heavily in their design and translated it to a road car application.”