Aston Martin Goes from the Track to the Sea with Groundbreaking Submersible

Are you an eccentric billionaire who’s gravely concerned about the rising sea-levels and likelihood that climate change will turn the world into a real live version of Waterworld (sans Kevin Costner)? Great – because Aston Martin has teamed up with Triton Submarines to work on a pretty innovative idea: a commercial submarine called ‘Project Neptune’.

The team responsible for its development admits that it was a challenge merging the performance and aesthetics of Aston Martin’s automobile pedigree with the safety and 360 degree visibility that Triton wanted to achieve. But, the engineers managed to combine those facets successfully, and through increasing its power and improving its hydrodynamics, the Neptune will reach in excess of 5 knots, which is faster than Triton’s own flagship 3300/3 model.

One of the other challenges this project put up was the design of the interior. In a conventional super or hypercar, the interior is installed into the chassis from an open sided cabin. For the Neptune, though, everything needed to be lowered in through the central hatch and assembled inside the cabin. Maintaining the quality Aston Martin is renowned for in the face of this engineering-quirk is quite an impressive feat.

Project Neptune makes its debut at the LYBRA Superyacht show in Barcelona, where prospective buyers can look into buying what is sure to be a highly unique and unacceptably-expensive vehicle. Anyone that wants to get really, really close to underwater sea life, or potentially be a future James Bond villain, will likely find the Neptune quite an appealing product.

The Neptune will sell for a reported $4 million (around R50,484,000).