It’s been two years since we last heard about the small car maker and its RP1 sports car, but the Brits have finally completed the first production-spec variant and they’ll put it through its paces at Goodwood.
After designing and developing the lightweight sports car over a four-year period, at its new facility in Hambledon Hampshire, Elemental wants to showcase the 500hp/tone automobile and its abilities at Goodwood’s iconic hill-climb event.
The Festival of Speed marks the perfect official outing for the car, because the latter was conceived with the intention of creating one of the most advanced cars of its kind, as John Begley, Elemental’s Technical Director and Founder said:
“The RP1 has been designed and developed to deliver a thrilling driving experience no matter if it’s on road or track. The collective sum of the adjustments we’ve made to make the production car amounts to a fundamental leap in terms of quality, driving dynamics, performance and safety over its forebear.”
Described as a car without compromise, the RP1’s design advantage is Elemental’s patented CarbonAl tub that weighs only 65kg and incorporates a feet-up driving position – just like a F1 car or a World Endurance prototype. Although it will be street legal, its construction exceeds FIA’s structural standards for strength and rigidity, as it uses F1-grade carbon fiber.
Thanks to its aerodynamic appendages, such as the rear diffuser modeled using a state-of-the-art Computational Fluid Dynamics software, the RP1 generates 400kg of downforce at 150 mph (241 km/h), and this is in the standard road height set-up (The RP1’s suspension can be easily adjusted and optimized by the user, either by hand or using basic tools).
Powered by a choice of two turbocharged Ecoboost engines, comprised of a 180hp, 1.0-litre three-cylinder, and a 320bp, 2.0-litre four-cylinder, the Elemental can sprint from 0 to 60mph (96 km/h) in 3.2 seconds and 2.8 seconds, respectively. That should translate into a very fast hill-climb at Goodwood.
PHOTO GALLERY
