Prodrive will make and sell a road-legal version of the Hunter off-roader that premiered at the Dakar Rally in January. The Prodrive Hunter has a body designed by ex-Jaguar design chief Ian Callum and with Spanish driver Nani Roma behind the wheel, finished fifth overall in this year’s Dakar. A handful of changes will be made to the production model but for the most part, it will be very similar to the racer.
As noted by Autocar, the production model
will feature the same Ford-derived 3.5-liter twin-turbocharged V6 as the race
car, except rather than having 400 hp to meet racing regulations, the road car
will produce roughly 500 hp. Mated to this uprated engine will be a more
sophisticated transmission that is better suited to road use.
Elsewhere, the new model from Prodrive
should have largely the same structure and suspension setup as the race car,
although its body will be widened to accommodate larger wheels and tires. As
such, the off-roader should be more than capable of tackling some treacherous
terrain without breaking a sweat.
Prodrive wants to have a prototype of the
production model up and running by the end of the year. Pricing is tipped to
exceed £ 1 million (US$ 1.37 million).
