Supercars Ltd. of New Zealand introduced their new supercar in style this past weekend at the Taupo circuit in conjunction with the A1GP event. The Hulme CanAm was driven by racing legends Chris Amon and Stirling Moss on Friday January 23rd and was on display thoughout the weekend.
The Hulme CanAm is manufactured by Supercars Ltd. of Auckland and was designed with the assistance of Massey University engineering students under the guidance of Professor Tony Parker. Named in honour of Denny Hulme, the great New Zealander who won the World Championship for Brabham in 1967 and CanAm chamionships for McLaren in 1969 and 1970, this new supercar is an open topped, carbon-fibre machine designed for road and track use. But how does this Kiwi supercar stack up to the current reigning F1-car-for-the-road, the Caparo T1?
Power comes from a hand-built Chevrolet LS7 V8 producing 600 bhp (more than the T1’s 575 bhp), mid-mounted in the under 1000 kg chassis (significantly more than the T1’s 550 kg). The suspension is double wishbone front and rear with push-rod actuated springs and dampers. Race proven brakes provide the stopping power. Despite its awesome power to weight ratio, the Hulme CanAm has been designed for drivability with power delivery and handling dynamics optimized for driving enjoyment on the road as well as the track. We doubt that it will have anything on the Caparo T1 in terms of track performance but it couldn’t have any less ability on real roads. On real roads, the T1 is wont to spin out if you aren’t going into a corner at 100+ mph. As Jeremy Clarkson will attest…
The Hulme CanAm is scheduled for limited production build in 2010 and will be available for just 295,00 euros ($ 485,000 CDN), about the same as the Caparo. A closed top coupe model is also in the works for the future.
This is exactly what the economically-tattered world needs right now, an insanely priced hypercar from a manufacturer no one has ever heard of and no one cares about. If they sell 5 of these, CarEnvy will eat their collectively metaphorical hat.
Caparo can sleep easy tonight.