Halcón
Falcarto
German
sports car startup Halcón SuperSport’s presence at the recent Frankfurt Auto
Show may have been overlooked in all of the hustle and bustle of the industry’s
biggest event, but there’s certainly no chance of the same happening to its new
sports car out on the streets. The car is called the Falcarto, and it’s the
first automotive product of Halcón which is based in Frankfurt and has
previously marketed an electric bike.
The
Falcarto is a much more ambitious project than the bike but Halcón had some
help along the way. The company started with a chassis of a Nissan 370Z.
However, extensive modification means that hardly any of the original donor car
remains. Every panel on the car is unique, with much of the body composed of
carbon fiber to help reduce weight and lower the center of gravity.
The
name Halcón is Spanish for “falcon” and the company itself was founded by local
businessman Rick Damm. Together with designer Christopher Kranz and engineer
Jörg Bröll, Damm was able to create the Falcarto which boasts output levels
ranging up to 640 horsepower. The base model, which is priced from 170,000 Euros (approximately US$ 190,000), is expected to deliver around 420 hp.
Power
in the Falcarto comes from a heavily modified version of the 370Z’s 3.7-litre V-6. A custom twin-turbocharger setup plus a host of other mods is what allows
the engine to deliver upwards of 640 hp. In its most potent setting, the
Falcarto will accelerate to 60 mph in less than 3.5 seconds and keep going
until it tops out somewhere close to 200 mph.
Now
that the development work is complete, Halcón has opened up the order books.
Just 15 examples are planned for production, with most of the work
painstakingly done by hand.
