Aston Martin has announced that it will be producing a mid-engined, road legal hypercar featuring technology from the Valkyrie project in 2021, codenamed ‘Project 003’.

The car, of which 500 coupe examples will be produced globally, will be powered by a petrol-electric hybrid engine, will feature active aero and is being developed as the brand’s third hypercar behind the Valkyrie and Valkyrie AMR Pro (projects 001 and 002).

“It was always the intention for the Aston Martin Valkyrie to be a once-in-a lifetime project,” said Aston Martin Lagonda President and Group Chief Executive, Andy Palmer.

“However, it was also vital to us that Valkyrie would create a legacy: a direct descendent that would also set new standards within its own area of the hypercar market, creating a bloodline of highly specialised, limited production machines that can exist in parallel with Aston Martin’s series production models.

“I’m thrilled to announce that this car is the Project ‘003’, and our next step into a dynamic and exacting arena.”

The timing for Project ‘003’ is conveniently close to the expected start of the next set of ‘LMP1’ regulations, with the new ruleset set to feature brand styling cues to make the race car’s branding much more obvious than current LMP1 Prototypes.

Following in the footsteps of the Valkyrie and Valkyrie AMR Pro… #Project003 #AstonMartin https://t.co/S7XR0anVwi — Aston Martin Racing (@AMR_Official) September 20, 2018

Aston Martin have been party to the ongoing discussions on the new rules, set to be introduced for the 2020/2021 FIA WEC season (including the 2021 Le Mans 24 Hours) with evaluation of LMP1 and other potential motorsport programmes currently on the ‘to-do’ list of Aston Martin Vice President David King.

King stated in conversation with DSC earlier this summer during the WEC round at Silverstone, that “while no decisions have been made, we are still very interested.”