[WIP] Aston Martin Valkyrie

[Jeroen Ottens]

Time for another update. This should be close to the final model:

The lime green propeller blade at the bottom will be replaced with a black one.

Here is a front view with the changed A-pillar shape:

In the rearview you can see I chose for a minimal design of the rearlights. I feel this is the best compromise between accuracy, looks and elegance of design:

Even though I have never seen any photos of the underside I suspect that this is how the big venturi ducts run below the car. In the area next to the cockpit a second duct is running towards the engine compartment above this one:

I just realise that I forgot to mount the central display screen:

The biggest thing to work on is the suspension. The suspension is just strong enough to hold the weight, but when compressed the friction in the suspension is too much too overcome, so it doesn't bounce back. I'll have to take out all friction pins in the setup that I added to minimise play, but I'm afraid that that won't help enough. Four stiff springs is just not a lot for such a big model, so I might have to think of ways to increase the spring stiffness or preload.

Comments and critique are welcome.

[efferman]

Wow! the green Parts are a design decission or only the lack of parts?

[2GodBDGlory]

Nice job! That looks like an extremely difficult car to model! I see some red panels from the new Porsche in there--that was quick!

[GerritvdG]

Wow, I think this is pushing the boundaries of what can be expressed with Lego Technic in terms of design. 

[Jeroen Ottens]

 

4 minutes ago, 2GodBDGlory said:

Nice job! That looks like an extremely difficult car to model! I see some red panels from the new Porsche in there--that was quick!

I was really struggling finding a good solution for this area, so these parts came just in time for me

8 minutes ago, efferman said:

Wow! the green Parts are a design decission or only the lack of parts?

Lack of parts, black ones are on order

Just now, GerritvdG said:

Wow, I think this is pushing the boundaries of what can be expressed with Lego Technic in terms of design. 

Thanks

[LvdH]

A few years ago this build would be considered impossible, but you nailed it imo. Looks fantastic! Those connectors on the front look a bit messy though. 

[Lukes_Brick_Studio]

Wow, as already said, I really thought building a replica if this car would be impossible, but this looks great. Such a cool car. You really catch the lines of this car very well. I think the underside view, with all these vents, looks so amazing. Maybe some 3d-printed wheels, which look like those on the real aston martin valkyrie, would give this car a nice finish.   

Edited January 16, 2022 by Lukes_Brick_Studio

[Gray Gear]

Looking good! This car is a great challenge due to its unorthodox shape, but I think you did a great job shaping the body!

One thing I think is especially challenging tho is the shaping of the earo parts, the front splitter and the way it is mounted especially. I can't really see that here, so I'll wait for the final presentation 

Regarding the taillights I am still a bit sad there are only two rows of lights. But I can understand your decision. Sometimes it is better to choose a more simplistic solution over a cluttered more realistic one. It was probably the right compromise to make here 

The frunk (or is there even anything under there?) is a bit cluttered, but idk what could be done to improve it either 

Myonly real complaint is the connector windshield. Maybe this is just me, but I really dislike the stacking of these connectors to achieve a round shape. It just looks bad because of the holes. Sadly this is quite often done for wheel arches, and I think it just looks bad. Any chance to replace it with flex axle or maybe the click joint connectors?

But I think the greatest achievement here is that you managed to get this thing strong enough to not fall apart when you pick it up. None of the things I do to achieve a stiff chassis on my cars would be applicable here 

And I would also like to know the final piece count  My Nissan 180SX MOC recently shocked me with a final part count ~4200 

Thx for the update, very well done.

Gray Gear

[Jeroen Ottens]

4 hours ago, LvdH said:

A few years ago this build would be considered impossible, but you nailed it imo. Looks fantastic! Those connectors on the front look a bit messy though. 

Thanks. Yeah I spent a lot of time on the front to try to make it less cluttered, but I think this is somewhat the limit of the system or my creativity showing here.

1 hour ago, Lukes_Brick_Studio said:

Wow, as already said, I really thought building a replica if this car would be impossible, but this looks great. Such a cool car. You really catch the lines of this car very well. I think the underside view, with all these vents, looks so amazing. Maybe some 3d-printed wheels, which look like those on the real aston martin valkyrie, would give this car a nice finish.   

Thanks. I know that my customer will put 3D-printed wheels on this one, I'll see if I can get a photo of it.

16 minutes ago, Gray Gear said:

Looking good! This car is a great challenge due to its unorthodox shape, but I think you did a great job shaping the body!

One thing I think is especially challenging tho is the shaping of the earo parts, the front splitter and the way it is mounted especially. I can't really see that here, so I'll wait for the final presentation 

Regarding the taillights I am still a bit sad there are only two rows of lights. But I can understand your decision. Sometimes it is better to choose a more simplistic solution over a cluttered more realistic one. It was probably the right compromise to make here 

The frunk (or is there even anything under there?) is a bit cluttered, but idk what could be done to improve it either 

Myonly real complaint is the connector windshield. Maybe this is just me, but I really dislike the stacking of these connectors to achieve a round shape. It just looks bad because of the holes. Sadly this is quite often done for wheel arches, and I think it just looks bad. Any chance to replace it with flex axle or maybe the click joint connectors?

But I think the greatest achievement here is that you managed to get this thing strong enough to not fall apart when you pick it up. None of the things I do to achieve a stiff chassis on my cars would be applicable here 

And I would also like to know the final piece count  My Nissan 180SX MOC recently shocked me with a final part count ~4200 

Thx for the update, very well done.

Gray Gear

Thanks for the elaborate reply.

The frunk can open, but it only gives access to the mounting points of the front chassis.
I'll give the clickconnectors for the A-pillar a try to see how those look.
The chassis is surprisingly stiff. Again, replicating the monocoque of the real thing helped a lot. I used to get the stiffness in my chassis from the central column, but I more and more use the monocoque as the load-bearing part. It is a bit more tricky to find an assembly sequence to get proper form-locking in the corners of the box, but it delivers a lot of stiffness in return. All the paneling at the side is more fragile than usual though. You really have to hold the car by it's central body.

Piece count is around 2400 parts... This is partly due to the source material. There is just very little space on the inside of the body, so there is not much room to put parts in .

[T Lego]

Jeroen,

It's been a great pleasure to watch this unique build develop with all it's complexities! It's instantly recognizable with so many clever solutions to achieve resembling body shapes. I especially love the brutal back end and the panneled underside. It let me to think it would be fun to put this in a windtunnel and see if a low pressure area would actually be created at the bottom, though presumably the airflow get's disturbed by all bumps and holes (it's a technic build after all) resulting in vortices. 

Some critics from me too: I don't think using mudguard panels at the front was a good idea. They throw off the proportions a bit on this part, making the front look too bulky. Moreover you can see the challenge too make the body work flow nicely towards these panels. As other have mentioned, the frunk looks a bit on the cluttered side due to the connectors. As for the front edge, I think a continuous line using e.g. a soft axle would have looked better than these #21/22 panels. 

Have you considered using this  part as a-pillars? You can get the desired curvature whilst keeping the looks clean.

Thanks for sharing!

[amorti]

The new BMW rear shocks are supposed to be stronger than the traditional Lego shocks. Not sure they're available as spares yet though and it's a safe bet they'll be expensive.

https://brickset.com/parts/design-79717

[howitzer]

9 minutes ago, amorti said:

The new BMW rear shocks are supposed to be stronger than the traditional Lego shocks. Not sure they're available as spares yet though and it's a safe bet they'll be expensive.

https://brickset.com/parts/design-79717

I think B&P is also delivering stuff very slowly now, taking up to 2 months for the orders to be mailed so if you're in any kind of hurry, that's not an option.

[LvdH]

18 minutes ago, amorti said:

The new BMW rear shocks are supposed to be stronger than the traditional Lego shocks. Not sure they're available as spares yet though and it's a safe bet they'll be expensive.

https://brickset.com/parts/design-79717

They are available, and they are expensive. They cost about €8 a piece. 

[astyanax]

@Jeroen Ottens The 5M beams right behind the front wheels and right in front of the rear wheels seem not to be fixed in place. This could easily be solved by putting a into the 4th hole.

[Jeroen Ottens]

Thanks for all the comments and the advice

On 1/16/2022 at 8:58 PM, T Lego said:

Jeroen,

It's been a great pleasure to watch this unique build develop with all it's complexities! It's instantly recognizable with so many clever solutions to achieve resembling body shapes. I especially love the brutal back end and the panneled underside. It let me to think it would be fun to put this in a windtunnel and see if a low pressure area would actually be created at the bottom, though presumably the airflow get's disturbed by all bumps and holes (it's a technic build after all) resulting in vortices. 

Some critics from me too: I don't think using mudguard panels at the front was a good idea. They throw off the proportions a bit on this part, making the front look too bulky. Moreover you can see the challenge too make the body work flow nicely towards these panels. As other have mentioned, the frunk looks a bit on the cluttered side due to the connectors. As for the front edge, I think a continuous line using e.g. a soft axle would have looked better than these #21/22 panels. 

Have you considered using this  part as a-pillars? You can get the desired curvature whilst keeping the looks clean.

Thanks for sharing!

The front mudguard panels were quite a challenge. There is so little body to work with around the frontwheels that I wanted to use these panels as they offer at least some rigidity. In real life they are not too bulky, maybe the photos are a bit distorted (I just learned I should use the longest focal length when photographing).

The frunk is what it is I am afraid. There is so little room to work with as I wanted to keep as much space as possible below the bodywork so that it is possible to look from the front along the wheels to the back. As a consequence I had to use some connectors to create a 2D surface with all the angles.

I have thought about softaxles for the front, but I wasn't sure how to make the transition to the paneling behind it. I also felt they were actually not given such a sharp edge as the real car has.

I actually didn't think of that dino part. I'll give it a try.

On 1/16/2022 at 9:46 PM, amorti said:

The new BMW rear shocks are supposed to be stronger than the traditional Lego shocks. Not sure they're available as spares yet though and it's a safe bet they'll be expensive.

https://brickset.com/parts/design-79717

Unfortunately these springs are thicker as well. Space is at a premium in this model, especially in the areas of the suspension. I have already redesigned the front suspension by moving the attachment point of the springs 1 stud closer to the pivot point. It is now nicely stiff and bouncy. In the rear I found that missed to connect two wishbones, repairing that has improved that suspension also significantly.

On 1/16/2022 at 11:29 PM, astyanax said:

@Jeroen Ottens The 5M beams right behind the front wheels and right in front of the rear wheels seem not to be fixed in place. This could easily be solved by putting a into the 4th hole.

They are not fixed in place, but I did use these in the fourth hole.