Three years after New Zealand’s Rodin Cars presented their wild FZERO track car, the small manufacturer has confirmed that production of the vehicle will soon commence. The Rodin FZERO has been designed without any restrictions for road cars or race cars and aims to be the fastest car around a track. Just 27 examples are destined for the production line with the first units to be completed in 2023. Like any proper track car, the FZERO is light. Very light. In fact, it has been constructed entirely from carbon fiber and tips the scales at a mere 698 kg. This is particularly impressive when you consider that it is 5,500 mm long and 2,200 mm wide. Rodin says that all of the car’s carbon fiber parts are manufactured in-house.
Powering the car is a 4.0-liter
twin-turbocharged V10 built by Rodin and Neil Brown Engineering. This engine
weighs just 132 kg and has been designed as the lightest and most
compact V10 ever built. The company says it churns out a combined 1,159 hp and 1,026 Nm of torque with the assistance of an electric power unit,
which itself is good for 174 hp. The engine revs all the way through to 10,000
rpm. Coupled to the 4.0-liter twin-turbo V10 is an eight-speed transmission
built alongside Ricardo and complete with a titanium 3D-printed case, meaning
the gearbox itself weighs just 66 kg.
A lot of effort has also been spent to ensure
that the FZERO brakes just as well as it accelerates. It has been equipped with
380 mm carbon-carbon brake discs at the front and rear, complete with
six-piston front and four-piston rear titanium calipers. These brakes also
offer regenerative braking for the hybrid system. A set of bespoke 18-inch OZ
Racing wheels have also been developed for the car, sitting at a massive
14-inches wide at the front and 16-inches at the rear, wrapped in 300 mm wide
front tires and 360 mm rear tires.
The most remarkable claim about the Rodin
FZERO is that it is capable of producing up to 4,000 kg of
downforce. The car manufacturer hasn’t said at what speed it achieves this
figure, but what we do know is that Rodin says the FZERO has been “engineered
to lap a circuit faster than a current Grand Prix Formula 1 racer.” It is good
for a claimed top speed of 360 km/h.
Pricing details have not been announced.
