Mercedes-AMG may be sticking a Formula One-derived engine in its incoming ‘One’ hyper, but for road-going F1 lunacy, we think the ladies and gents and Lanzante might have just trumped Stuttgart. And done so with a very different kind of car.
The small British company – known for doing all sorts of wonderful things with McLarens – is starting an incredible project that’ll unite Tag-Porsche 1.5-litre V6 F1 engines with 11 930-generation Porsche 911 Turbos. Yep, that’s a powerplant from F1’s crazed turbo era of the 1980s, which saw cars run hilariously boosty 1000bhp engines.
There is a historical point to all this, too – Porsche once fitted one of its McLaren-destined F1 V6s in a 930 to create a test mule. The plan is to build – with McLaren’s blessing – 11 cars riffing off that thoroughly bonkers idea, albeit with the power turned down a tad from the original circa-1000bhp figure.
Power could is expected to be hovering around the 800bhp mark, though, so we’re assuming some fairly hefty chassis modifications will be part of the package. Technical details are still limited at this stage, but we do know that Cosworth – which is already building an F1-like engine for the Aston Martin Valkyrie – will be restoring the engines for the car. And just in case all this wasn’t cool enough already, Lanzante has said that each engine will have F1 racing history.
The Tag-Porsche engine powered McLaren’s F1 machines of the the mid-1980s to 25 victories, two Constuctors’ titles, and three Drivers’ Championships. The idea of driving around in something powered by such an important piece of motorsport history is quite intoxicating, isn’t it?
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