Flashback: The 1970s version of the Aston Martin Valkyrie

Aston Martin stepped out of its comfort zone in 1979, as it is doing with the Valkyrie, when it launched the extraordinary midengined Bulldog supercar — complete with gullwing doors, retractable lights, a rear-facing TV camera and storming V8 power.

In the words of the Aston boss of the time, Alan Curtis, this was going to be the world’s greatest supercar.

Aston Martin Valkyrie revealed in near-production form

The Bulldog was designed for Aston Martin by William Towns. The original plan was to make a batch of 25 cars for expensive sale to Aston’s ‘usual suspects’, a ruse the cash-strapped company repeatedly used as a way of staying alive. The engine was a 600bhp, twin-turbocharged version of Aston’s staple 5.3-litre V8. The car was reputed to have reached a genuine 190mph in tests, a tremendous performance when cars claiming to do 190mph often struggled to make 150mph.

Comment: from the Aston Martin Vulcan to the Valkyrie

In the event, only one car was built, probably because Aston discovered such a ‘different’ car was far too expensive to build, especially since its cabin space was too compromised for the average millionaire to fit behind the wheel. It still exists and was recently offered for sale.

Steve Cropley

Title: Editor-in-chief

Steve Cropley is the oldest of Autocar’s editorial team, or the most experienced if you want to be polite about it. He joined over 30 years ago, and has driven many cars and interviewed many people in half a century in the business.

Cropley, who regards himself as the magazine’s “long stop”, has seen many changes since Autocar was a print-only affair, but claims that in such a fast moving environment he has little appetite for looking back.

He has been surprised and delighted by the generous reception afforded the My Week In Cars podcast he makes with long suffering colleague Matt Prior, and calls it the most enjoyable part of his working week.