The $1.4M Prodrive Hunter is a “Ferrari of the desert”
Britain’s race and rally legend Prodrive is planning to sell the world’s first dedicated “desert hypercar” based on its recent entry to the Dakar Rally.
Having taken fifth place in the January desert race in Saudi Arabia, Prodrive reckons there’s a market for a road-going version its Hunter racer.
Powering the Hunter is a 3.5-liter twin-turbo Ford V-6, and the streetable version will pack in excess of 500 hp compared to the racer’s 400-plus hp. Drive is to all four wheels via a six-speed sequential transmission. Built around a spaceframe chassis the Hunter features a unique suspension system where the springs and dampers are attached to the lower wishbones.
Like the race car the Hunter will be designed by Ian Callum, with the biggest difference between the road car and the racer being bigger wheels and tires and, accordingly, wider bodywork. The body itself is made from special recyclable composites.
Prodrive boss David Richards told Autocar that the Hunter’s performance will be unprecedented. “Nobody’s ever done a car like it before,” he said. “Imagine a road car capable of going across the sand dunes at 100 mph for 300 miles.”
The Hunter will be the first street car to be sold under the Prodrive name, although the company has collaborated with Mazda on the RX-8 and Subaru on the Impreza to create special editions, while Richards was also part of a consortium that owned Aston Martin from 2007 to 2013, and the firm’s AMR performance arm was launched with Prodrive know-how.
Prodrive says it will have a prototype running by the end of 2021 and that the price of dune-bashing at breakneck speeds will be in excess of $1.4 million.
