No pain, no gain. The Caparo T1 hurts. It's a bruising process just clambering over the sides and squeezing into the carbon tub, grazing yourself on all the hard edges that crowd in, pulling muscles as you reach for the harness. And the noise, even at idle! If you don't have earplugs or ideally a full helmet, it shoots an agony into your auditory canals.
Something this extreme demands sacrifice. It has the highest power-to-weight ratio of any road-legal car, by dint of light weight as much as power. Its maker is using it as an advertisement for its composites expertise, in the hope of gaining bigger OEM contracts. This prototype, carrying overweight test parts, is under 1400 pounds. But it has power too: some 550-plus horses, courtesy an Indy-derived 3.5-liter V-8. Zero-to-60 in 2.5 seconds, zero-to-100 in five. The aero package supplies enough downforce for 2.5g high-speed cornering.
The numbers - the approximately $350,000 price not excepted - are frightening. And it looks like an accident in a cutlery factory. I'm gently quaking. Besides which, I have no one else's comforting experience to draw on. In an accidental world exclusive, I just hitched a ride with an engineer as he drove up the road for a quick systems check. "How much road mileage has it had?" I asked. "None. That was the first time. Ready for your turn?"
The steering wheel is, like everything else, tiny. A combined digital instrument sits in its boss, and behind it are F1-style paddles. A clutch (very heavy, very aggressive) is used only to hold the car at a standstill. Underway, just pull the paddles up and down, and the pneumatic gearbox actuator and drive-by-wire throttle take care of the shifts. Instantaneously.
At rest, it sounds like someone's using a chainsaw to stir an iron pail of bolts. Precisely no concessions have been made to refinement. You have to hold 3000-plus rpm to make the oil pressure lights extinguish. There are only two options to moving away. One is to deploy ballerina gentleness to release the clutch and open the throttle. This takes too long and carries a high risk of a stall. Option two is simply to dump the clutch and let wheelspin take care of things. Neither is ideal for Main Street.
And then. Then. Then my world explodes, and I can't swear to the accuracy of the following. All mental bandwidth is used in controlling the unfolding storm, rather than in recording it.
The acceleration is far, far beyond anything from the exotic establishment. Enzo? Carrera GT? No, this is another order - and I never get near the 10,500 redline. Brakes - again, I haven't the courage to summon their full capacity. And on this small, twisty section of road, the notion of using full aero-aided cornering capacity is utterly foreign.
And yet the car speaks. I expected its high-g abilities would render it foreign to anyone other than a qualified single-seat race driver. But it does communicate about the tires' grip as it darts with insectlike directness through a curve. The engine allows you to meter out the power and so stay on speaking terms with the available traction.
Of course, it's nowhere near a road car. It's too ornery. It's for the track, and it'll be epic at recreational track days. There might be a one-make race series, too. No, its "roadgoing" qualification (at the moment legal only in Britain - the U.S. distributor, Chad Mann of Mann Motorsports in Atlanta, says it'll be track-only) is just so owners can boast they own the fastest thing with license plates. And the second seat, staggered uncomfortably behind the driver's left shoulder, will be most often occupied when professional drivers take passengers on the ultimate whiz-bang ride on corporate entertainment days.
Caparo T1 on Top Gear
Top Gear: Caparo T1 Review
Others videos :
Caparo T1 Race at Ascari Track, Malaga, Spain
Caparo T1 Super Car - evo Magazine
Caparo T1 Street Legal Racer - Prestige Cars
Startup of Caparo T1 at MPH 09
Wath pros says about ?
"As the world's first road car to exceed 1 000bhp per tonne, the Caparo T1 will surely grab attention. Currently being developed by engineers that helped deliver the iconic McLaren F1, the T1 concept is a road going, two seat sports car using formula racing technologies whilst delivering safety and accident protection..."
Read more at supercars.net
"More than one supercar has used the thoroughbred racing machines of Formula 1 as inspiration, but Caparo Vehicle Technologies is ready to take that idea to its logical conclusion -- a street-legal F1 car..."
Read more at auto.howstuffworks.com
"The astounding Caparo T1 looks set to re-write the record books. Acceleration from 0-60mph in 2.5 seconds and 0-100mph in just 5.0 are a match for even the mighty Veyron ... but then the T1 promises more!..."
Read more at supercarworld.com
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