BMW hasn’t done a mid-engined
supercar since the M1. But this comes pretty darn close. It looks like an i8 – and that’s
the idea. But it’s actually a purpose-built silhouette racer, built around an
entirely custom chassis. At its heart sits a 4.0-liter naturally aspirated V8
kicking out some 540 hp, instead of the hybrid turbo triple
found in the road-going i8 (where it currently produces 369 hp). That
comes up close to twice the power of the street car.
The result, is
what its constructor calls the i8 GTR, with the engine from the Z4 GTE sitting
low in the middle of the tube frame. A French firm called Solution F helped
develop it for the Hamofa Motor Sport team that will field it in the Belcar
series. The national GT racing championship competes in Belgium on tracks like
Spa and Zolder – two historic homes of the Belgian Grand Prix.
The vehicle weighs just 1,100
kilograms, which is nearly a 440 kg lighter than the
production i8 it’s cloaked to emulate. And with other competition-spec
components, it ought to run circles around BMW’s flagship hybrid – which itself
is hardly a slouch, hitting 100 km/h in 4.4 seconds and topping out at
an electronically limited 250 km/h. What’s more is that the team plans an even more
potent upgrade to bring it up closer to 600 hp.
