The Connaught Type-D Syracuse GT Almost Hit The Market With A 2.0-Liter Supercharged V10

Have you heard of the Connaught Type-D Syracuse GT before? Probably not. Heck, we hadn’t even heard about it until Drive Tribe discussed it and its intriguing engine in the video below.

The project was led by Tim Bishop and Tony Martindale out of the UK and the car came outfitted with a truly extraordinary 2.0-liter V10 engine. Not only that but the engine was supercharged. To describe this engine, and the car, as ‘unique’ would be an understatement.

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Drive Tribe notes that the compact engine had the cylinder banks set at just 22.5 degrees and was mounted very far back in the car’s tubular steel spaceframe chassis. It produced approximately 300 hp and was paired with a five-speed manual transmission and a limited-slip differential driving the rear wheels. As you can probably imagine, this V10 sounded unlike any other and produced a howl more akin to a high-revving sports bike.

Connaught has also experimented with a hybrid V10 prototype

It’s not just the engine that made the Connaught Type-D quite the thing. The car complemented the tubular steel spaceframe chassis with carbon fiber body panels and was said to weight just 950 kg (2,094 lbs). What’s more, the small British company had the intention of eventually selling the Type-D in hybrid guise and wanted to equip the V10 with start-stop technology and the ability to deactivate one bank of cylinders for city driving, effectively turning it into a 1.0-liter five-cylinder.

As is so often the case, however, the car never made it to production, despite ambitious claims from the car manufacturer that it was actually under budget when developing the car.