If you follow global motorsports, you know the British specialty fabricator and high-technology research warren known as Prodrive. Founded and nourished in the pro rally world, Prodrive first entered a Porsche 911 SC that Henri Toivonen took to the European Rally Championship in the early 1980s before a 19-year running operating Subaru’s World Rally Championship efforts and later, switching to circuit cars by race-breeding the Ferrari 550 Maranello and Aston-Martin Vantage. Now, Prodrive is introducing a self-branded exotic that’s based, generally, on the Bahrain Raid Xtreme entry driven by Sebastian Loeb.
What you see here is the newly introduced Prodrive Hunter, billed credibly as the world’s first off-road, all-wheel-drive hypercar. The builder says that in terms of pure output, the Hunter is superior to even Loeb’s ride, with its twin-turbocharged 3.5-liter V-6 producing an estimated 600 horsepower in customer trim, about a 50 percent boost, if you will, from Loeb’s total output. Built around a space-frame tubular chassis with all-wheel drive and dual shock towers at each corner, the Hunter parallels the Dakar car’s technology, with two exceptions: The extra power, and the substitution of a six-speed paddle shift for the competition car’s sequential mechanical gearbox. Prodrive claims a 0-60 time under four seconds, and says the Hunter will priced at 1.5 million pounds Sterling.
Jim Donnelly On Wheels 