Elemental road racer ready for FoS

With up to 550bhp per tonne no one is expecting the RP1 to be anything other than electrifying when it makes its dynamic debut on the Goodwood hill every day of FoS (24-26 June). The RP1 will be quick.

Well, it will be if the car, in a deep shade of blue, is finished on time. GRR decided to drop in at Elemental HQ – a bright modern building neighbouring a dairy farm outside that well known motor industry hub of Hambledon, Hants – to see how things are progressing…

“We were at the Chobham test track last week calibrating the launch control and taking performance figures and are very happy with the results,” Elemental joint founder and aerodynamics manager Mark Fowler tells us. For the record: 0-62mph in 2.8sec, 0-100mph in 6.4sec and 165mph all out.

The bald figures tell only half the story of this car, however. The doorless two-seater, with its aero screens and exposed carbon tub, definitely looks the sports prototype part, but it’s what you can’t see that promises to set the RP1 apart, even in a crowded road-racer market.

In a word: aero. At 100mph this car is sucked down by the force of 200kg; at 150mph there’s 400kg of weight mashing the tyres into the tarmac, with low-pressure points at both the front and rear of the car. And all achieved without drag-increasing spoilers and wings. The secret? A unique system of double diffusers designed into the perfectly sealed, entirely flat undertray. And a great deal of computational fluid dynamics. 

Of the seven people on the Elemental payroll four of them worked at McLaren, on both road and race side. These aren’t just grade A car nuts building a sports car together; these are ex McLaren Grade A car nuts…

Making space for the front diffuser did, however, require a bit of a rethink inside the cabin, the result of which provides the RP1’s other USP: a feet-up driving position where your ankles are just slightly higher than your hips. There’s no other road car in the world like it, but Lewis Hamilton and Mark Webber should feel instantly at home here.

Alas GRR didn’t get a chance to try this F1/LMP1-style driving position but those who have say initial uncertainties disappear within minutes. And from then on it feels entirely natural – quite a neat trick then for a car that in other ways is designed to be everyday usable. Twin 100 litre storage bins for shopping (or, more appropriately, helmets) are built in, there’s room for drivers well over 6ft, the ride in road setting is said to be exceptional and even the turning circle, at 10.2m, is more Lidl car park then Le Mans pit lane.

As Elemental’s tech director and founder John Begley says: “Hopefully you will be able to take your wife out in the car and she won’t want to kill you at the end of it.”

All this in a car that claims to be as focused and potent a track weapon as you could hope for. So what, and who, is Elemental? Back to remotest Hampshire….

AFTER HOURS HOBBY PROJECT

The evolution of the Elemental project is laid bare in the firm’s building. Against the far wall is the motorcycle-engined 750 Club racer where the RP1 has its roots. It was the after-hours hobby project of a group of friends, most of whom worked at McLaren at the time. This first project might never have been finished but there are things about it – notably that feet-up driving position – that define the project to this day.

Over on the far wall is the first carbon tub they had made to replace the aluminium of XP (experimental prototype) 1. Then there’s the yellow XP2, the car that turned hobby into business for Elemental Cars.

Since its Goodwood 2014 unveiling, the yellow car has racked up tens of thousands of test miles and been praised to the hilt by journalists who have driven it. Even in hard-used prototype form, Autocar mag ranked it their first choice of track-day special – no easy feat in a market populated by so many talented cars from Lotus, BAC, Caterham, Ariel, Radical, Vuhl, Zenos and KTM.

Elsewhere in the building a new car is coming together that will form part of a static display on Elemental’s show stand at FoS (open from Moving Motor Show day on Thursday, 23 June). And then there’s PP (pre-production) 1, the blue car which will be let loose on the hill, with seasoned driver/race coach Ed Moore behind the wheel.

Seeing this blue car close up, and hearing John and Mark explaining its essence, is to understand the Elemental ethos, one they have no hesitation in saying was inspired by their former employers in Woking.

LIGHT, STIFF… AND VERY PUKKA

So, the car. Light (640kg), very stiff, carbon/aluminium tub, steel subframes front and rear, carbon body panels, unequal length double wishbone suspension and adjustable Nitron dampers, inboard at the front. Weight distribution is 46:54 front:rear and the  car is low – just 1070mm, or 42 inches with an equivalently low centre of gravity. This latter point is partly thanks to the Ford Ecoboost engine being mounted longitudinally, with a six-speed electro-pneumatic Hewland ’box hung off its end, with engine and gearbox forming a structural element of the car. Very pukka.

The engine can be had either as a 1.0-litre three-cylinder (180bhp and 0-62 in 3.2sec) or as the 2.0-litre four-pot with 320bhp and 0-62 time of 2.8sec. Both turbo engines  come with heaps of torque. John says performance delivery is quite different between the two, with the 1.0-litre more suited to road driving. He also says Ford’s 2.3 Ecoboost with up to 500bhp fits bolt-for bolt…

There are AP Racing Pro four-pot calipers and vented steel discs, a mechanical limited slip diff, Toyo 888 tyres, unassisted steering with 2.5 turns between locks, and a customisable traction  control system.

Inside, the pair of deeply-dished and radically-angled one-piece carbon buckets define the simple, very focused cabin, though with heating and USB point there’s a smattering of useful extras. The steering wheel is a quick release job and there’s a simple configurable display on the screen behind it.

INSPIRED BY THE DUCATI 996

Getting design character into a car as aerodynamically focused as this was the job of  Guy Colborne, ex Ford, Pininfarina, BMW and TWR. “The first two lines I drew were the most important,” he tells us. “They are the lines that stretch over the wheels, forwards and backwards from the exposed central section of carbon tub. They are the lines that give the car its dynamism.”

The front and rear body panels overlap the tub (“handy for avoiding panels gaps…”) and have their thinking as much in motor cycle fairings as car design, Guy says. The car’s ”spine” is his favourite bit, a feature that extends from bonnet to the high-mounted centre exhaust pipe and inspired, he says, by the Ducati 996.

The twin aero screens provide a classic race car look while leaving parts of the structure exposed reinforces the functionality of the design. The result is pleasing as well as purposeful, the “little sports prototype look” that Guy set out to capture.

An interesting fact about the car is that it is totally symmetrical, from the exhaust to the matching twin dashboard binnacles – which do of course easily swap so left hookers can be made as easily as right-hand drive cars.

ONE NEW CAR A MONTH

What’s next for the Elemental RP1? First of all more of them – as you read this the company is starting on the first customer cars, with the aim of making one a month to begin with. There are a lot of bespoking opportunities but also some tempting things promised, such as a full windscreen, adjustable pedals and the option of both driver-adjustable ride height and ceramic brakes.

The price of all this is not cheap (from £92,700 including tax) but par for the marketplace – and a lot less than any McLaren…

“When you work at McLaren certain things are ingrained in you,” John tells us. “The technology, the materials, the light weight, the obsessive attention to detail and making sure everything is right, rather than just rushing things out. That’s our background and our way of working at Elemental.”

He insists, however, he didn’t have any vision to build the RP1, that the idea for it “just grew”. John, who has a Porsche 914 in his garage and an engineer’s unassuming manner, also says that from day one they stuck to what they knew was right, without reference to other cars. Was that their secret?

“Certainly we have not had to make many compromises as the car has developed into production form. Everything has been pretty straightforward. You have to make sure each part does its bit: if you make a stiff chassis then you the suspension can be made to work. Everything is connected.”

We will see just how connected when RP1 takes to the hill at FoS. How hard will they be trying? “Ed Moore is just going to floor it and hang on, and hope that downforce will keep it all together around Molecomb…”

We’ll be there watching John, that’s for sure…

Photography by Tom Shaxson