The Pebble Beach Councours D’Elegance starts next week, the most rarefied and prestigious concours event in the world, the Super Bowl for a certain kind of car type — mainly the super rich. It’s as good a location as any to unveil a new seven-figure open-topped supercar.
That would be the Aston Martin Valkyrie roadster, a darkened photo of which Aston shared Monday. Aston will also give the Valhalla its North America, a car which we have already seen plenty of. Well, Aston Martin doesn’t say “new Valkyrie roadster” explicitly, but this looks like it and it really can’t be anything else.
Positioned at a custom-built 11,300 sq. ft. (1,050 sq. m.) luxury Club House in a prime location overlooking the hallowed 18th fairway of the Pebble Beach Golf Links above Stillwater Cove, Aston Martin’s 2021 space honors both the past and present, while simultaneously looking forward with the introduction of two new products that point to the brand’s performance car future.
Highlighting the weekend, Aston Martin Club 1913 will host the North American debut of the new Aston Martin Valhalla – following its reveal at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone – as well as a global reveal of an exciting new product which extends the brand’s performance credentials a step further.
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Guests visiting Aston Martin Club 1913 will enjoy a display which celebrates the brand’s return to top-level Grand Prix racing after more than 60 years, using technology derived from Formula One® racing endeavors to inform the brand’s new mid-engine road car strategy. Sharing the luxury space, Aston Martin will also honor its relationship with the James Bond film franchise spanning more than 50 years. In addition, vehicles which embody the leading-edge capabilities of the marques bespoke service, Q by Aston Martin – cars like the visceral V12 Speedster – will be on display for guests to see first-hand for the first time in America.
Concours events like Pebble Beach are great opportunities to see many, many cars that you might otherwise never see, and also occasionally some new ones, too. Automakers like Aston use concours events as exercises in branding, because if you want to sell expensive cars to rich people, you should hang out in their spaces. The Pebble Beach Concours is a definitional rich person space.
Pebble is also basically prom for automotive journalists, who like to go and dress up and mingle, enhancing the appeal for Aston, as it might get a few more blogs than usual out of it. Whether that sounds attractive in any way, shape, or form to you, a potential Pebble attendee, is probably dependent on how you felt about going to your high school prom, or how you feel about going to art museums. Predictably, I prefer one more than the other.