IT mogul’s ultimate boy’s toy
Fighter jet on four wheels meets the Batmobile.
He’s been rocked by earthquakes and frustrated by development delays and budget blowouts, but the Australian IT tycoon building the world’s fastest track car in a quiet corner of rural New Zealand, is close to revealing his prototype to the world.
Mega-millionaire David Dicker plans to unveil his ultimate boy’s toy at the world-renowned Dubai International Motor Show in November.
The Rodin FZero supercar, designed as a track-day car as fast, or faster, than a Formula One car, with top speeds in excess of 300km/h, is nearly complete.
The Herald on Sunday got an exclusive sneak peek at the lightweight, full-carbon design this week.
Sitting in his sprawling factory complex at Wandle Downs, near Waiau in remote North Canterbury, the car looks like a cross between a fighter jet on four wheels and the Batmobile.
It has a closed cockpit, high aerodynamic front wheel arches and sleek sharp lines. The pricetag could top $1.2 million.
The final body parts — rear fenders — are due to arrive next week from expert boatbuilders and composite specialists McConaghy Group, which has operations based in China.
“It has come out all right . . . It should be rolling on its own wheels in another two to four weeks,” said Dicker, the 64-year-old behind hardware distribution company Dicker Data Ltd.
“We’re making good progress but it’s taken much longer and cost a lot more than I’d have hoped, but what do you do? If something isn’t right, you have to change it.”
The rich-lister now employs 10 fulltime staff and is making his own 4-litre V10 engines from scratch.
His high-tech, bespoke Waiau factory and private test track is near the epicentre of last November’s earthquake that damaged land, roads, rail, and property in North Canterbury and southern Marlborough.
Dicker, who divides his time between Waiau, his native Sydney, Jumeirah Beach in Dubai and Italy’s Dolomites mountain range, said the Kaikoura earthquake made for “not the most enjoyable of nights”.
Ceilings collapsed in two workshops and caused widespread damage to his track.
The sealed 3km stretch of asphalt suffered 60 cracks
“from edge to edge”.
“We probably wasted a month cleaning up the mess. It was really unsatisfactory . . . a giant pest,” Dicker said.
“But when I first came here, I knew earthquakes were a possibility, so I could never complain.”
Last year, after the Herald on Sunday revealed Dicker’s selfconfessed “vanity project”, legendary British sports car manufacturers sold Dicker their Lotus T125 project — a V8-powered lightweight single-seater racer. Dicker rebranded the cars Rodin FZed and over the past year has developed and tested the prototype. “We’ve been running it and had no major issues. It fires up, runs well, doesn’t leak or smoke or rattle. The quality of build is far ahead of what the other guys are doing.”
Dicker tests the prototype himself and has done more 3000km on his track.
In a Ferrari Challenger racer, he’s reached a top speed of 256km/h, with an average lap speed of 153km/h. But he’s “methodical, not moronic” about testing.
“You don’t want something going wrong at those speeds.”
HWatch video from our visit at nzherald.co.nz cars than