Turn it all the way up to, er, ten

As the world adapts to an electric future, Mclaren and Rodin both reveal new V10 track cars

YOU CAN TELL WHEN THE WORLD IS teetering on the edge of financial Armageddon, because the gaps between new hypercar announcements can be measured in weeks rather than years. After Red Bull confirmed it’s unleashing Adrian Newey (again) to build the ultimate track-only hypercar, the RB17, two more of the same breed can now be added to the list.

One is from a familiar source, the other from a small company taking large steps in the motorsport and track-car arenas. Both feature bespoke V10 engines, both have single-seater closed cockpits and both drip with motorsport-inspired, and proven, DNA.

Mclaren and hypercars are nothing new – they live and breathe them in Woking. But the cars also follow a strict formula, or rather they did until the cover was pulled from the Solus GT at Monterey Car Week in August. This time there is no Monocell tub. There is no Ricardo-developed and built twin-turbo V8 or hybrid V6. There’s no SSG seven-speed gearbox, either. There is, however, what originally appeared in 2017 as a concept to race in that year’s Gran Turismo videogame and is now a production reality.

‘We started about two years ago,’ says Andrew Palmer, Mclaren’s vehicle line director, ‘and it was an idea conceived by Mclaren and a handful of customers wanting us to build something special.’ Customers who clearly consider the Senna, Speedtail and Elva as a bit run of the mill…

Underpinning the Solus GT is a carbonfibre tub with roots firmly entwined in the world of Le Mans Prototypes, including using both the engine and gearbox as stressed members. Suspension is inboard push-rods at the front, pull-rod activated torsion bars at the rear. Four-way manually adjustable dampers are fitted, as well as adjustable anti-roll bars and adjustable ride-height springs. The rear suspension is mounted to the aluminium casing of the motorsport-spec seven-speed sequential gearbox.

Aerodynamics are crucial to the Solus’s performance, generating 1200kg of downforce to push the sub-1000kg car into the track surface. There’s no active aero, rather there is a stepped splitter at the front, while at the rear a wing is mounted to the impact structure, which is also bolted to the gearbox.

Oh how we’ve rolled our eyes at Mclaren rolling out another V8 mid-engined car and oh how our jaws dropped when it said it was putting a naturally aspirated V10 in its new track car. The motor is from Judd and originally found success

in the Pescarolo 01 Le Mans car in 2006. ‘We considered the V8, but to meet the weight target and packaging requirements of the car would have required too many changes to our design and the philosophy of the car,’ explains Palmer. ‘And the V10 is about 70kg lighter than the V8,’ he adds.

The V10 has a 70-degree V-angle, four valves per cylinder and a dry sump. To this, Judd has designed and produced a bespoke crank, air intake and exhaust, including a manifold that needed to be recessed to improve packaging, plus camshafts and barrel throttles also to Mclaren’s specification. They even increased the capacity to 5.2 litres. It produces 828bhp at 10,000rpm, 479lb ft of torque, and will ensure the Solus is good for 200mph.

The car’s canopy isn’t there purely for drama, it’s integral to the car’s aero (an open cockpit would require a redesign of the car) and was inspired by the Lightning jet. However, plans to have the canopy open by tilting upwards, as per a fighter jet, meant there could be space issues in some pit boxes around the world, so Mclaren came up with a mechanical system that allows it to slide forward.

Inside is a cockpit that has had input from Lando Norris and features an adjustable pedal box and fixed seat (each driver gets a seat fitting). The steering wheel is as per any modern single-seater or LMP car, with every customer receiving driver coaching on how to get the best from all the tech.

Testing of the Solus GT is already underway, with first deliveries due in 2023 for the 25 customers who have each handed Mclaren £3million plus taxes for one.

IF YOU MISSED OUT ON BUYING A SOLUS THERE IS a second all-new V10-engined track-only hypercar for your consideration: the Rodin Fzero.

Like Mclaren, Rodin has strong links to

New Zealand, the company being based near Christchurch on the south island. It is headed by Australian tech entrepreneur David Dicker and has quickly established itself as a motorsport and track car specialist: along with supporting and nurturing young racing talent, Rodin has also taken the excaterham F1 cars and turned them into workable track cars, built its own factory and test track, and has now announced details of its first bespoke car: the Fzero.

It’s a ground-up design led by Dicker, who has had input into every area of the car, his no-compromise approach resulting in a 1160bhp closed-canopy, carbon-monocoque, carbon-bodied machine.

Unlike Mclaren, Rodin has designed its V10 from scratch. Built by Neil Brown Engineering in the UK, it has a 4-litre capacity and is equipped with a pair of turbochargers complete with 3D-printed titanium manifolds. On its own it produces 986bhp at 9000rpm and 671lb ft of torque, but also unlike the Mclaren the Fzero features an electric motor, a 130kw unit that boosts peak outputs to 1160bhp and 1057lb ft. This powerplant is mated to an eightspeed gearbox made by Ricardo.

Weight is a bugbear of Dicker’s, so the Fzero tips the scales at just 698kg (with fluids), which explains the obsessive attention to detail the company is going to in designing, manufacturing and building the car itself. The V10 weighs 132kg ready to run, the gearbox 65.8kg, the exhaust system less than 10kg.

OZ Racing will manufacture the 18-inch forged rims, Avon the slick tyres they will wear, and the 380mm carbon-carbon brakes by PFC will slow it all down with the aid of ABS.

Thirty Fzeros will be built, destined for the track but not motorsport – ‘Too many rules, too many compromises,’ says Dicker – and deliveries will start next year. The price? £1.8million.

IT’S BILLED AS CALIFORNIA’S EQUIVALENT to the Goodwood Festival of Speed. However, with more cars parked up to be admired over a glass of local chardonnay than burning Castrol R on a hill climb, Monterey Car Week has quickly become the show of choice for manufacturers wishing to present their very expensive, very limitededition showcases. Such as these.

1 Ruf Bergmeister

One wag christened Monterey Car Week ‘911 Restomod Week’ due to the number of such cars being revealed there. While all were inspiring, brave and unique, the grandfather of the Porsche backdating scene, Alois Ruf, really turned heads with his latest creation. An homage to Porsche’s own 1960s hill-climbers, it’s based on a 993, has a carbon body over a steel chassis and a 450bhp 3.6-litre turbocharged motor driving the rear wheels through a six-speed manual ’box.

2 Tuthill Porsche 911K

850kg wet, that’s ‘the’ number. That’s the headline that caused the champagne to be spat across the Californian lawn. With good reason, because even for an oldie, a 911 that weighs less than an S1 Elise is a mighty achievement.

Carbonfibre and titanium are responsible for the weight loss, with the steel chassis clothed in a body fabricated entirely from the former, and the latter used for many of the mechanical components, including the suspension and roll-cage. Beneath the body is a 3.1-litre, short-stroke flat-six with a four-valve head and the ability to rev to 11,000rpm. On second thoughts, maybe that’s ‘the’ number.

3 Bugatti W16 Mistral

This is it then, the final W16-engined Bugatti. Costing £4.2m the Mistral is a 1577bhp roadster that shares its engine with the Chiron Super Sport 300+ and is built on a modified carbonfibre monocoque to suit its open-roof design and more rounded silhouette, which has a hint of the one-off La Voiture Noire about it.

This first open-top Chiron will bring to an end an 18-year run for the quad-turbo, 16-cylinder behemoth of an engine that debuted in the Veyron. Its replacement is expected to feature a hybrid element before the first all-electric Bugatti, developed with Rimac, arrives.

4 Koenigsegg CC850

Is it really 20 years since Christian von Koenigsegg unleashed his wild imagination and desire to achieve the impossible in the automotive world? It certainly is, hence this 1385kg, 1366bhp (depending on fuel) CC850 special. Limited to 50 units initially, with another 20 added when they sold out, and priced at around £2m each, it features the company’s own twin-turbo 5-litre flat-plane-crank V8 and ‘Light Speed Transmission’ nine-speed multi-clutch ’box.

5 Aston Martin DBR22 concept

No, this is not last year’s Aston Martin V12 Speedster, this is the DBR22, an altogether different, 705bhp (up 15bhp) V12-engined Speedster. Honest.

Inspired by the 1959 Le Mans-winning DBR1, the DBR22 is said to provide a tantalising hint of what is to come from Aston’s new range of GT and supercars due next year, with a design language led by Miles Nurnberger, who has returned to Gaydon following his dalliance with Dacia.

6 Singer 930 Turbo Study convertible

Remember the Singer 930 Turbo Study revealed at Goodwood this summer? This is the convertible version that pays homage to the even rarer 930 Turbo Cabriolet.

With 510bhp and the option of either rear- or fourwheel drive, it’s based on the 964, drips with the kind of details that Singer is renowned for and is designed, like its coupe sibling, as a grand tourer rather than being more track-focused like the firm’s DLS.

7 Bentley Batur

For those who missed out on the Bacalar, Bentley’s limited-run open-top Continental GT given a very exclusive makeover by the company’s Mulliner division, there is now the Batur, its coupe brother.

As per the Bacalar, it’s based on a Continental GT Speed, but now features the most powerful W12 engine Bentley has produced, rated at 730bhp. It also has a more contemporary appearance, as design director Andreas Mindt has used the opportunity to showcase what a Bentley EV could look like.

Eighteen examples will be produced, priced at £1.6m, and they’re already sold out.

THE DOOR-SIZED ROLLER SHUTTER raises double quick, as if impatient, and I step through. Snow crunches beneath my feet, the chill hits my face and I grin. I’m standing in a space about the size of a decent supermarket, its surface carpeted in snow. Nearby are a couple of cars and I can see a circuit marked out around the perimeter with thin orange poles. It’s -10deg C in here. The crazy thing is that just a few minutes earlier I was outside, gently baking in 20-degree June sunshine.

We are in northern Sweden, close to the Arctic Circle, at a test facility owned by a company called Arctic Falls. The northern reaches of Scandinavia are the go-to winter-testing destination for European tyre makers and car manufacturers. In 2017 Pirelli opened its own, extensive, 130-hectare proving ground just down the road at Flurheden, but it has helped in the creation of this indoor facility by committing to a certain amount of annual usage.

Increasingly, tyre manufacturers are heading indoors in efforts to speed up development, and the key reason is the consistency offered by a controlled environment. The winter test season in Scandinavia runs from November to March, sometimes April, yet even this far north large temperature fluctuations are possible in a single day. As spring approaches, sunshine can play havoc with ice test surfaces; graded snow can maintain its condition but the surface of ice can melt very rapidly, halting testing. The stability of indoor test

tracks can help accelerate development.

At the Arctic Falls facility there are 400m-long ice and snow lanes that can be connected to the indoor ‘flex’ space. These allow development to continue during the summer months, which is especially useful in the development of ‘allseason’ tyres. Pirelli’s test track has summer test tracks too, so comparison of an all-season tyre’s performance in all relevant conditions – snow and ice, warm and cold wet and warm and cold dry – is possible in mid-summer in pretty much the same location on the same day.

The flexible space at Arctic Falls can be configured as required and adds the ability to assess cornering performance. Initially the space was filled with snow from outside but it’s been discovered that the snow makers installed in the roof deliver a more consistent surface. Driving around is an odd sensation, like being in a two-dimensional snow dome. Speeds of up to around 50mph are possible, allowing some useful assessment of traction and stability control interventions, and braking and accelerating while turning. It’s odd to see a piste basher parked up but it was even more odd at one point to realise that it was snowing indoors. The space can be kept at -10deg C even when it’s up to 24deg C outside.

Such a space can be useful to car makers, though it doesn’t offer enough challenges for complete vehicle sign-off because that requires gradients and higher-speed handling. In time a solution to this may come because the consequences of a European car maker not

Left: UTAC’S test centre in Finland was the first indoor snow handling facility. Top and above: Arctic Falls in Sweden is the latest. Above right: Continental’s AIBA in Germany is used for braking tests in various conditions completing sign-off before spring arrives are expensive: either delay the programme and wait another year, or ship cars and engineers to New Zealand. Even if a car maker commits budget and resource to the latter, there’s an inconsistency to cope with: snow in the southern hemisphere is slightly different…

The first indoor snow handling facility opened in Ivalo, Finland, in 2019 and offers similar testing opportunities to Arctic Falls despite being different in concept. It is run by UTAC, the company that now owns and runs the Millbrook Proving Ground near Bedford in the UK. It’s a 350m long, kidneyshaped, fixed loop built in a 9m-wide tunnel.

One of the first indoor test facilities was created by Continental to test the most significant aspect of tyre performance: wet braking. It opened its Automated Indoor Braking Analyzer (AIBA) in 2012 at its main site in Hannover, Germany. Inside this 300m-long hall, conditions can be created for wet, dry and even icy braking tests, and the tests are carried out using fully automated, driverless cars that can be accelerated up to 70mph and braked, consistently. The actual braking surface can even be changed, with one huge slab of road being swapped for another hydraulically, like a child’s sliding-square puzzle.

The AIBA can carry out up to 100,000, highly accurate brake tests per year, but the process of tyre development is far from becoming automated. Continental is planning to build a second, identical wet-handling circuit at Hannover, not to test even more tyres but simply to ease the pressure on the heavily used current track – another indication that when it comes to providing predictable, consistent test conditions, indoor tracks are becoming increasingly valuable.