DEAD ON ARRIVAL
Drawing comparisons with McLaren’s F1, Yamaha’s OX99-11 supercar promised light weight, V12 power and a central driving position
Did you know that Yamaha had planned to introduce a V12-engined supercar with a central driving position that weighed just 1150kg back in the 1980s? And it was quite similar to the legendary McLaren F1. The name? OX99-11
IN THE LATE ’80s YAMAHA DECIDED TO celebrate its new role as a Formula 1 engine supplier by making a supercar, powered by a house-trained version of its race engine. The initiative was pushed by the company’s promo-seeking sporting goods division and, after a false start with a sport prototype-alike design from a firm in Germany, Yamaha hired International Automotive Design in Sussex to create something more radical.
Working in league with Ypsilon Technology, the Milton Keynes-based Yamaha subsidiary that built the F1 engines, and to a radical exterior style created by Mooncraft in Japan, IAD confected a tantalising spec for this unique machine. It started with the engine, a de-tuned version of the OX99 racing V12, hence the car’s name, incorporated as a load-bearing part. In road spec it would make 400bhp at 10,000rpm. Not heaps by modern standards, but adequate when the car’s carbonfibre tub and aluminium panels made it a 1150-kilo lightweight.
A conventional six-speed manual ’box and rear-wheel drive promised uncomplicated pleasures, while suspension design followed race car principles with inboard springs and dampers worked by pushrods. Damping and ride height would be fully adjustable. The driver sat centrally with a small space behind for a ‘pillion’ passenger. Access was by a single gull-wing door, and the interior was wilfully minimal, though it would at least have air conditioning.
IAD completed the first prototype in 1991 and conducted shakedown tests at Millbrook Proving Ground under the cover of darkness to minimise the chances of anyone papping this insane-looking machine. Satisfied that the concept worked as intended, it built another two cars ahead of a press launch in 1992, at which Yamaha said it would make 20 to 30 cars a year in the old Brabham factory in Chessington. The price was not confirmed, though it was expected to be as much as £500,000 (`2.2 crore) in 1992, and the company emphasised that acceleration and driveability were greater priorities than top speed.
You might think all this sounds very similar to another early ’90s, motorsport-related supercar. Free-revving V12, central driving position, emphasis on more than just numbers. Yamaha even brought in March co-founder Robin Herd to provide the team with a Gordon Murraystyle, motorsport-hardened engineering guru. But where the McLaren made it to production, the OX99-11 was not so fortunate. Soon after the car was revealed, IAD and Yamaha fell out, the project was back in-house, and then the Japanese economy tanked. As belts were tightened, the OX99-11 was an obvious sacrifice.
All three OX99-11 prototypes appear to have survived and one was up for sale in Japan last year, with a price tag of `9.5 crore. As for Yamaha, it never achieved its dream of making a road car, and its F1 efforts were without success. On the plus side, since the ill-fated OX99-11 its contribution to other firms’ road car engines has been significant, including the 1.7-litre four-cylinder in the Ford Puma and the V10 of the Lexus LFA.