Half motorcycle – half car, half reality – half fantasy; a truly amazing concept that will never make it into production – or will it?
The Honda Project 2&4 combines the manufacturer’s knowledge of superfast bikes and awesome cars into a unique, skeletal concept. The thing was spawned by Martin Petersson after an internal design competition at Honda (between 80 other individuals) which commissioned a car powered by the V4 powerplant used by Honda’s RC213V Moto GP racer.
Yes, this 405 kg (893 pound) whatchamacallit is powered by a 14,000 rpm-screaming, 212 hp-producing, MotoGP-spec V4 engine. This, combined with the fact that it’s inspired by Honda’s awesome 1965 RA272 F1 car makes it extremely cool.
So, apart from the fact that it was conceived to work as a ballistic vehicle, mirroring the freedom of a bike, don’t let the apparent single-seater layout fool you, because the car can accommodate an unfortunate passenger. It has a hard, removable tonneau on the driver’s opposite side that can house someone – just like the classic racing cars.
Anyway, speaking with Top Gear, Martin Petersson mentioned that the project has more than 15 minutes of fame dedicated to it, saying: “There will be a next step. It’s been too positive for us to go and complete this project in a basement somewhere. The question is what that next step is.”
“The company slogan is ‘The Power of Dreams’. If we don’t believe in it I might as well not go to work, right? I believe there’s potential. It’s a big challenge but we’ve built jet airplanes. That was a big challenge and a lot of these iconic Honda products more-or-less start like this. There’s no science fiction in the car…”
So, will it make it into production? Highly unlikely, as it uses components from a bike that costs $184,000 in road guise, but we’re keeping our fingers crossed just in case. Nevertheless, “the next step” will probably be a fully-functional concept.
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