Prodrive Hunter: Out of the Dakar and onto the street
The motorsport company Prodrive has brought its BRX Hunter T1+ Rally car from the Dakar to the street. The T1+ Rally car was the company’s entry into this years Dakar and now it has no class restrictions and will make it’s way to 25 lucky buyers.
Although, they might not be that lucky as there is a £1.25M price tag attached to it which makes many hypercars seem more reasonable. Though, none of those are Dakar tested and ready to tackle the off-road like the Hunter is.
“There are numerous hypercars on the market, however they all need good roads or even race tracks to show their performance. We identified that in certain parts of the world, particularly the Middle East, there are vast expanses still to be explored that go way beyond the access provided by asphalt roads. Therefore why not create a vehicle that gives the opportunity to explore these regions with performance way beyond that offered by any off-road vehicle before.” – David Richards, Prodrive Chairman
All the same exterior from Dakar but a brand new interior.
The exterior of this upcoming off-road hypercar has been kept almost exactly the same as its Dakar parent. In our honest opinion, that was exactly the right move as the car has stunning looks that really stands out. Something you would likely want if you are coughing up over R24-million for it.
The interior on the other hand has been completely revamped. It’s no longer the barely hospitable place Dakar rally drivers had to cram themselves into. Now, the Prodrive Hunter has much more interior room with most of the cage tucked away, two carbon-fiber bucket seats and shifer padels instead of a lever. There is still plenty of exposed carbon fibre, mostly around the new centre console and digital gauge cluster.
And just in case you go way to hard ramping up dunes while you pretend to be racing from checkpoint to checkpoint, there is a dual fire extinguisher system inside for when things go sideways. Jokes aside, this is a very good thing to have if you are to use this monster for its intended purpose.
The Prodrive Hunter will take hypercar performance to the dunes.
This new road legal version of the Prodrive Hunter no longer has the class restrictions that the Dakar have in place and the company really broke away from them. The front-mounted 3.5-litre V6 engine now produces 50% more power than the T1+ Rally car. This comes to 440 kW and 700 Nm which gets pushed through all four wheels via a six-speed sequential gearbox.
That new power allows the car to reach 100 km/h in under 4 seconds. With street going tires, the Prodrive Hunter will also be able to reach a top speed of 300 km/h. However, the company is not delivering the Hunter with those tires. Instead, buyers will get really mean looking 35-inch off road tires.
Those are fitted to a front and rear double-wishbone suspension which enables the Prodrive Hunter with 400 millimetres of travel. That is 10% more than the T1+ Rally car.
Source: Cars | Car and Driver | Prodrive
