Last hurrah

Our sustainability zeitgeist is hard to argue against in 2020, but one casualty whose passing will be lamented by drivers is the large, naturally aspirated petrol engine.

If you don’t already own an electric or plug-in hybrid vehicle these days, you’re undoubtedly driving a car whose engine has shrunk in capacity and is turbocharged, to save fuel. Howling, free-breathing V8s, V10s and V12s are the fossil-fuelled relics of our salad days.

There are pockets of resistance, however, that continue to celebrate motorsport and road cars in all their noisy glory. One of them is Brabham Automotive, the Australian brand that launched the BT62 track, competition and road car in 2018, at Australia House in London.

While racing driver Jack Brabham is a familiar household name, the company formed by his son, David, together with a private equity firm, is less so. Trading heavily on Jack Brabham’s motorsport renown (the BT part of the name appeared on Brabham’s 1960s race cars – he won his third F1 World Championship in the BT19), the BT62 is intended to be “the world’s ultimate track car for seasoned drivers… and gentleman racers”, according to the brand’s CEO, Dan Marks.

No one doubts the speed of the BT62 hypercar: it’s the fastest closed-wheel vehicle ever to run the gamut of the Mount Panorama Circuit at Bathurst. Just 70 BT62s will be built, at a cost of about £1m each, depending on whether you choose the standard specification or a stripped-out competition version. For another £150,000, Brabham will convert the car into a road-legal model, which is tempting, although you’ll struggle to release the full 700 horsepower that the 5.4-litre V8 engine has to offer (that might not sound terribly powerful but this car only weighs 972kg). If you find this track-focused variant too lairy, Brabham promises news of another model, this time designed as a road-car first, later this year.

On the other hand, it would be mighty cool to cruise High Street Ken in a car which is almost indistinguishable from the BT62 that should race in the GTE class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race in 2021.

And if people don’t see you coming, they’ll certainly hear you: “The BT62 has raw power and the noise that a naturally aspirated engine makes, which is how a car should sound,” says Dan Marks. “We didn’t want to sanitise the experience of what we believe a true track car should be with a hybrid or electric drivetrain. Where we go in the future may be dictated by regulations that we need to conform to. Today, we have a choice – and that is embodied in the BT62.”

Therein lies the magic of this rarefied track and road car: it represents the fading liberty of the driver’s choice, which is being inexorably replaced by a single supply of power: electricity. In time, that may bring its own thrills and satisfaction, but for now it feels, and sounds, like the BT62’s exhausts are raging against the dying of the light.

This article was taken from the spring 2020 issue of Goodwood Magazine.