With an 836-horsepower V12, a six-speed manual transmission, and an ultramodern all-carbon chassis clothed in a high-downforce retro body, everything about the feels deliberate. Orchestrated. Actually, it was built out of a bunch of spare parts Aston Martin forgot it had lying around.

I get excited when I find a couple bucks in the pocket of a coat I haven’t worn in a few months, or maybe a roll of film in a camera I hadn’t used in a while. Aston Martin realizes it has an entire carbon chassis sitting and waiting for a reunion with a high-strung V12. Somewhat different kind of experience.

Aston recently let journalists drive the Victor, a multi-million dollar one-off built for an unnamed client. Well, not built for the client, exactly. Thanks to this , we know that Aston realized it had enough spares to build a one-off, then it went looking to find a buyer. From MotorTrend:

Very few people on earth get telephone calls like this one from Aston Martin: “We’re thinking of doing a one-off car and wondered if you might be interested?” And yet, according to Simon Lane, director of Q and special projects for Aston, that’s the (paraphrased) question asked of the eventual owner of .

Apparently, Aston found it still had a low-mileage carbon-fiber monocoque and V-12 engine from a One-77 prototype (that’s that made its debut more than a decade ago), and the brand’s Q division thought it’d be a shame to just leave it in storage. So ideas began to percolate.

First, the “lightly used” structure was sent back to its original supplier, Multimatic, to be restored to as-new specification. Likewise, Aston Martin’s engine partner, Cosworth, stripped the V-12 back to the block before rebuilding it. The resulting new and uniquely specified 12-cylinder improved on the One-77's quite adequate 750 hp and 500 lb-ft of torque to an even beastlier 836 hp and 614 lb-ft. It retains its 7.3-liter displacement and natural aspiration, but now the engine mates to a proper six-speed manual transmission instead of the One-77's six-speed automatic unit (with paddle shifters).

also drove the car, and clarified just how many of these One-77-related cars are around:

Underneath it’s mostly Vulcan, which in turn was mostly One-77, Aston’s first million pound hypercar. 77 of those were made, plus 24 Vulcans, meaning this is the 102nd – and last – car built on those underpinnings.

You should read the MT story in full, as it describes what it’s like having to wheel a one-of-one Aston with more downforce than a GT4 car around a track you’ve never driven. Just after it rained. On tires wide enough to flatten a pizza. With sun turning the track into a mirror. That’s not my idea of a good time, but it does at least come across as a memorable one.