This road-legal track of Elemental has been through difficult times later and after 2 years of delays the car is finally officially being produced. It’s a road-legal trackday special that can be fettled with basic tools and easily set up for road or circuit use. Although it was originally destined to be built from a factory in Wales, it’s now produced in Hampshire by ex-McLaren engineers using 75 per cent locally-made parts. This £100,000 go-kart is a serious piece of kit.
Expect 550bhp per ton from a Ford EcoBoost engine with ‘over 280bhp.’ To get that power-to-weight ratio our maths makes more like 340bhp necessary, but it’s possible they’re referencing the car’s dry weight. Ready for the road, the 620kg car sprints from 0-60mph in 3.1 seconds, 60-100mph in 4.4 seconds and brakes from 100-0mph in a lung-squeezing 4.5-seconds.
The company claims a metric ton of downforce at 150mph, which is rather a lot, and if you don’t want the rear wing, 400kg of that ton comes from the under-body aero inspired by its makers’ work on epic road cars like the MP4-12C and P1. The driving position is a feet-up affair, like a single-seat racecar, which allows Elemental to lift the floor and get cleaner airflow beneath the chassis, enhancing the aero package along with the front and rear diffusers. The company claims the Rp1 corners “like no other comparable car.”
