…and a few 1000-hp sedans, too!
The idea had been thought up a million times before, but Mercedes-AMG is doing something about it – build an F1 car for the street.
“The adaptation of a complete Formula 1 drive unit for a road-legal hypercar is a tremendous undertaking,” Mercedes said when prototypes started testing on the Nürburging.
The $2.6 million car would be a plug-in hybrid, with a 1.6-liter turbo V6 plucked from an actual F1 car, bolted into the AMG One and aided by four electric motors. That should be good for over 1000 peak horsepower, a 0-124 mph time of six seconds, and a top speed of 217 mph. But, it’s not so simple. In F1, there are 12 guys just to start the car.
“With Project One, you turn the key and people expect the car to start,” said Jochen Hermann, chief technical officer of Mercedes-AMG. “So we had to put software for (the equivalent of) 10 or 12 race engineers into the coding. I think that was something that was really underestimated.”
You can expect deliveries to start by the end of the year. Unfortunately, all 270 cars are already sold, meaning you will have to buy one at auction for ten times that much. Start saving.
The Valkyrie’s screaming hybrid drivetrain peaks at 1,160 hp at 10,500 rpm and 546 lb ft of torque at 7000, a combination of internal combustion and hybrid electric power. Cosworth built the 65-degree naturally aspirated V12 engine, which Aston says “invokes the ultra-high-revving F1 engines of the 1990s, but benefitting from two decades of progress…” Part of that progress comes in the form of the electrical powertrain helpers engineered by Rimac and Integral Powertrain Ltd. Those hybrid parts put in 160 hp and 207 lb ft in that peak performance.
The car itself even had a future in WEC competition until the FIA changed the rules for the class, according to Aston. The car’s on sale right now, with 275 production units coming out in total. That includes: 150 Valkyrie Coupes, 40 Valkyrie AMR Pros, and 85 Valkyrie Spiders. Price is a very reasonable $3 million.
If the Valkyrie is meant more for track, the Valhalla, AKA Son of Valkyrie, is more of an everyday hypercar, if you could call 1000 horsepower everyday. Okay, so technically it makes 950 hp, but earlier reports had it at 1000, so we’ll cut it some slack. It appeared – briefly – in the James Bond movie No Time To Die, but you didn’t get to hear its 3.0-liter turbocharged V6 howl.
Originally Valhalla was to have an inhouse turbocharged V6, but with increased cooperation with Mercedes AMG it will now have a combined 950 hp from a new mid-engine gasoline V8 (AMG Black-series derived) plus a battery electric powertrain that will still hit 950 hp.
The car’s specific MSRP hasn’t been announced, we’ve said between $800,000 to just over $1 million. Look for exact pricing when the car enters showrooms in 2024.
This is platform sharing that we can get behind. The Chiron replaced the Veyron at the Geneva show in 2016 and Bugatti has been developing the model ever since. These four Chiron variants offer a listed 1,500 hp at a low 6900 rpm and 1180 lb ft of torque from 2000 to 6000 rpm, all from a magnificent 8.0-liter quad-turbo W16. Imagine going to NAPA for a part on one of those. The Chiron Sport is lighter with a stiffer suspension setup; the Pur Sport is even sportier; and the Noire is a one-off tribute to the iconic Type 57 SC Atlantic. Chirons start at $3 million, small price to go 261 mph.
The Chiron was almost completely re-engineered to make the Super Sport 300+, a model designed specifically to break 300 mph as a production car. It did that August 2, 2019 at the Ehra-Lessien track with racer Andy Wallace at the wheel. Wallace hit 304.773 mph, which is more than enough to warrant the car’s name. Among the changes to the 300+ was about 100 more hp to a new peak of 1600, a body by Dallara and special tires from Michelin. That and a lot of aerodynamics. The 30 production units already sold to lucky customers will have speed limiters on them that will keep them below 300 mph. But Bugatti will outfit your car for a 300-mph run should you choose to try. Or, should you be willing to accept accept 273 mph, there is the “regular” Super Sport, which also has 1,578 hp but comes with a more civilized ride and comes with an entirely resonable sticker price starting at $3,825,000 before options.
The Czinger 21C is a new entry in the supercar segment. The tandem-seat mid-engine hypercar is powered by a 2.88 liter twin-turbo V8 that peaks at 950 HP with an 11,000 rpm redline. The batteries provide an additional 300 hp standard or 400 hp as an optional upgrade. That makes combined system output 1250 hp, but clients can opt for the additional 100 hp bringing the total to 1,350.
The most interesting thing about the Czinger may be the way it’s manufactured – through additive manufacturing, or 3D printing. Czinger can make a 21C in a relatively small space, or it can make just about anything you want to make in the same small space. Check out our article on it here.
Little-known fact: Christian Koenigsegg started out with a Miata. But he had dreams, man, he had dreams. The culmination of which may be this absurd screamer called the Jesko Absolut (Jesko is his dad’s name, let’s all hope our kids name something this cool after us). The Jesko has a 5.0 liter V8 (just like your Mustang! ha ha), with twin turbos and a lot of tight clearances and lightweight components that allow it to hit 1,600 hp when it’s running on E85. Starting price is listed “from $3 million onwards.”
Where can Koenigsegg go from here? Electric drive components ! It recently unveiled a six-phase inverter called David, and an electric motor called Quark that has “a torque/power-rich balance between radial (power-dense) and axial (torque-dense) flux topology it has dubbed Raxial Flux.” On top of that, Koenigsegg has integrated two Quark E-motors with one David inverter, plus planetary gear sets, in order to create the Terrier, a torque vectoring EV-drive unit. So one could infer from all that an electric Koenigsegg may be on the horizon.
The remarkable thing about this Koenigsegg, well, there are several remarkable things. First, Gemera will be built in a brand-new state-of-the-art factory in Angelholm, Sweden, connected to the existing factory on a former military air base. Then, it seats four adults, the first four-seater in Koenigsegg history. And most interesting of all, it has a crazy hybrid powertrain developed in-house called the Koenigsegg Direct Drive. Craziest part of it is the 2.0-liter twin-turbo three cylinder internal combustion engine called the Tiny Friendly Giant that has no camshafts. That component makes 600 hp and 442 lb ft. Then, three electric motors also move the Gemera forward, for a total system output of 1,700 hp. Top speed is a software-limited 248 mph. 0-60 takes just sub-2 seconds. How do you say, “I’ll take all of them!” in Swedish?
This two-seater gets a revised version of the 5.0-liter twin-turbo engine that was on the Agera, with three smaller turbos for better driveability and more boost from the electric components of the drivetrain. Altogether those components make 1,500 hp. But Koenigsegg says the Regera is “specifically designed to be a luxury Megacar alternative to (its) traditional, extreme, lightweight, race-like road cars.” Imagine a world where 1,500 hp is a “luxury alternative” to more powerful cars.
Lotus’ first all-electric supercar will have one 493-hp electric motor at each wheel, for a total of 1,973 hp when you add them all up. That’ll be good for a 0-60 time of less than three seconds. Top speed is 200 mph. Range from the 70-kWh lithium ion battery is targeted at 250 miles. Both the monocoque and the body panels will be carbon fiber, but weight will still be a non-lightness 3,703 pounds. While that’s all in the future tense, there was a video of the car testing and it did look like it’ll be fun to drive.
Lucid has begun production of the long-awaited Air sedan in Arizona, fielding a competitor destined to be endlessly compared to the Tesla Model S and Mercedes-AMG EQS. The luxury sedan has a few versions, one that promises a range of up to 520 miles courtesy of a 118-kWh battery, and an Air Dream Edition Performance with 1111 hp on tap and 471 miles of range. So there is definitely a range and horsepower war that’s unfolding at the moment, with Lucid aiming to ward off challengers with generous helpings of both. The Air Dream Edition Range, meanwhile, will serve up the top 520-mile EPA-rated marathons.
Granted, Speedtail production ended some time ago, but they are occasionally popping up for auction so we’re leaving it on the list. The Speedtail’s 4.0-liter twin-turbo 757-hp V8 makes 1,055 hp with just a little help from an onboard electric motor that adds 312 hp. Together it was enough that McLaren test driver Kenny Brack drove the car to 250 mph at Kennedy Space Center. Like the McLaren F1 of 30 years ago, the Speedtail features a center-mounted driver’s seat, but little else carried over from that iconic supercar. The price when new was around $2 million, but Michael Fux’ Speedtail just sold at Mecum last month for $3.3 million.
Rimac Automobili is a Croatian electric car company that seems to have signed agreements or been invested in by every entity from Hyundai/Kia to Porsche. Less than a year ago a complex deal was announced that may have put everything under some sort of Volkswagen umbrella. But this isn’t the Financial Times. The point is the Rimac is danged fast. We drove one in L.A. and scared ourselves and everyone on the West Side. Pininfarina has a version of this car called the Battista. And who knows, wouldn’t it make sense to make future electric Bugattis based on this? The salient point is that it makes 1,914 hp from four electric motors and goes 0-60 in 1.9 seconds. “O moj Bože!”
With two torque-vectoring electric motors in the rear and one non-torque-vectoring motor in the front combining for 1020 hp, the new Model S Plaid can go from 0-60 mph in a claimed 1.99 seconds, the fastest production car ever, Elon Musk said. It can do the quarter mile in 9.23 seconds, and can hit a top speed of 200 mph.Despite all that performance, Musk claimed the car has a 390-mile range and can get 187 miles of charge in 15 minutes at a Tesla Supercharger.
After a surprise prototype debut six years ago, Tesla has pushed back the production debut of its “rocket-powered” Roadster several times, the most recent to 2023. Who knows when it’ll be here?
We did see two of them drive a little back then, and they looked fast, but no hp figures were released, only torque. With compressed air offering “rocket” thrust, who knows what actual hp is made by those cute little speeders? Only Elon knows.
Among other things, the Roadster has been promised with a range of 621 miles, a top speed of 250 mph, 1.9-second launches from 0 to 60 mph—and a price tag around $200,000. Rocket-assisted handling, i.e. cornering and braking, has also been promised for the Roadster as an option, even though there are expected to be some weight tradeoffs to make such a system functional.
Keyword: All the 1,000-HP Supercars in the World