This week has been a highlight of recent weeks for car releases, announcements and news and therefore has prompted a news post on here for the first time since the pandemic hit the world. This week includes news of a new Nissan Z model, the first in over 10 years, the new Maserati supercar targeting itself against the Ferrari Roma and McLaren GT, a potential electrification of the world's fastest manufacturer and much more.
The first piece of news actually comes from the end of last week, however moving into university delayed the publication of a full first look at this brand new, significant model from Italy and therefore it shall be mentioned here. It was teased a few months ago that Maserati, for the first time in 15 years, would be building a supercar and that its release would be upcoming. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, this release was delayed to last week but before the coverage of the release, this is what we knew beforehand. It would have the 'MC' nameplate as the model designator rather than a trim level such as the GranTurismo MC and therefore it would be the first car since the Ferrari Enzo-based MC12 to wear that badge. It was rumoured before that it would be taking on the Lamborghini Aventador SVJ and the Ferrari 812, though now we know that to be incorrect, as it aims for a lower bracket of supercar. Many critics of Maserati also believed that this 'new' car would simply be a rebodied Ferrari 488 or Portofino when in fact it's Maserati's first car they've built independently since Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) sold their stake in Ferrari four years ago. When it came to the release last Friday, people gathered in the former autodrome in Modena where a gathering of previous Maserati models surrounded the stage and awaited the covers coming off. When the covers came off, it is fair to say many people were shocked as to what Maserati had built. A two-seater, mid-engined supercar with a 0-60 time under 3 seconds and a 200mph top speed. The styling makes it look more like a GT car than a supercar as styling cues can be spotted resembling the McLaren GT, Ferrari Roma and even slightly the C8 Corvette. It uses a carbon fibre body which makes it extremely light and uses butterfly doors to create a look of exoticism but it doesn't look crazy which is a good thing. Maserati has always been known as a less flashy but cooler alternative to Ferrari, with more soul than a McLaren or Porsche and without the dramatics of a Lamborghini, and therefore this design is a success. The MC20 will be powered by a 3.0 V6 nicknamed Nettuno as a homage to the statue of Neptune in Maserati's founding city of Bologna. It is an extremely powerful engine for a V6 producing 621bhp and with the 200hp per litre ratio, this puts the car into V8 supercar territory. Price wise, the car will be available in the UK during the second quarter of 2021 with a price starting from £187,230 with the MC20 aiming to restore Maserati's reputation for creating supercars, with a cabrio, electric and motorsports version on the cards for the following months.
In Motorsport news, this weekend is the 24 Heures Du Mans which is one of the many highlights of the motorsport calendar as a true test of endurance and skill. However the WEC (World Endurance Championship) as a whole has been struggling to keep fans interested as the GT3/GTE category gets thinner every year and manufacturers rarely participate in works teams as Porsche, Audi, BMW and Ferrari have all pulled out, leaving Toyota as the only high profile works team in the series. In order to combat this, the WEC announced a hypercar class to begin from 2021 which to most people is a return of the GT1 category of the late 1990s and early 2000s which allowed manufacturers to make a racing version of their latest top road car and race with little regulation. Already Aston Martin, Toyota, Rebellion and SCG have applied to put their hypercars in this class and now Peugeot have released images of their first entrant to the Hypercar class. It is developing the car as a hybrid alongside Total who Peugeot worked with for 25 years of motorsport activities including 3 wins at Le Mans with cars such as the 905 Evo and the 908 most recently in 2009. They have revealed the car will be all wheel drive and will have to have a combined power output of 670bhp and under due to the racing regulations. This may only be a concept at the moment as the £20 million price cap on development could stop this masterpiece being fully developed, according to the rules there are to be 25 road going versions of the hypercars featuring the same engine as in the racer, which would mean next year, Peugeot will release a supercar based on this for the public to buy.
Sticking with Le Mans news, Alpine have announced their bid to race an LMP1 prototype car at next year's 24 Heures Du Mans. Alpine in recent weeks have made massive steps in their motorsport endeavours having previously only run LMP2 cars in their rebooted history. A few weeks ago, after a shuffle around of Renault's management, Alpine Cars was put under the control of F1 team boss Cyril Abiteboul and he later announced Renault F1 would be known as Alpine F1 as of the 2021 season. This change also means Alpine are now one of the only manufacturers to run a team in two of the top motorsport classes, Formula One and WEC. Currently Alpine races as Signatech Alpine in LMP2 where it has been moderately successful with three class wins, two European championships and two World Championships but as of next year will run as Alpine Endurance using a chassis based on the existing Rebellion R-13 with the Oreca chassis and Gibson engine. It is also rumoured that Fernando Alonso will be given a seat in this car as he will be racing for the Alpine F1 team in the 2021 season. Previous to now and besides the LMP2 cars, Alpine have only run customer races using the Alpine A110 Cup, the A110 GT4 and the fascinating A110 Rally series so it will be interesting to see how they progress considering they only have a single model for sale as a manufacturer.
The Volkswagen Group is planning a mass overhaul of their ownership which would involve Bugatti being sold to new manufacturer Rimac in a shock move. Rimac is a manufacturer most famous for creating the Concept One that Richard Hammond crashed during a segment of the Grand Tour which left him seriously injured and the car written off, but despite this are in the development stage of creating a new electric hypercar with over 1800bhp and a 0-60mph time rumoured to be two seconds flat. They were formed in 2009 and therefore they do not have the funds themselves to buy Bugatti from VW. However, VW own Porsche and Porsche has a 15.5% stake in Rimac and therefore it is rumoured that VW will ask Porsche to boost the stake to almost 50% in order for the deal to be carried out. It is also rumoured that with this switch, Bugatti would switch from combustion engines to electric powertrains given Rimac's knowledge into battery powered cars. This would mean the demise of the legendary 8.0l quad turbo W16 that is used to power the 1479bhp Bugatti Chiron as well as their more limited models such as the Divo, Centodieci, Pur Sport and the Chiron 300mph+. Bugatti sold 82 cars in 2019 which may not seem like much but when each model is priced at over £2million, it was a successful financial year, especially with the release of the 10 strong limited series, the Centodieci which has a price of £8million new, and the La Voiture Noire which was a one off costing £13million new. It is also rumoured Bentley, Lamborghini, Ducati and ItalDesign could be targeted next with the Volkswagen group wanting to move into electrification.
The next car in the legendary Nissan Z model range has been teased this week via a very bright concept car known as the Z Proto. This has been designed as both a look into the future of the Z car brand and a homage to past masters. The bright yellow paint is actually a tribute to the original model, the 240Z, from 1969 as well as the later 300ZX of the 1990s. There are more retro elements in that the side profile looks very similar to the 240Z and the modern 350Z at the same time, as well as the front lights resembling the Japan only 240ZG. However, the rectangular grill, LED lights and carbon fibre side skirts do show that this car isn't just a retro show, as well as the new 19" wheels. In terms of performance, the only figures that are known about it so far are that it will be powered by a twin-turbo V6 and will feature a manual gearbox, a rare thing for sports cars nowadays. This may sound like a brilliant car to drive along the NC500 or on a cruise through the Alps, but there is the slight issue that Nissan won't sell you one. This is because Nissan have stated that due to a 'shrinking European sports car market and specific regulations on emissions' as therefore it is 'unable to build a viable business case'. This more or less means the car will not be sold in Europe or the UK which is a massive shame because it looks to be a solid car.
This year commemorates the 25th anniversary of McLaren's legendary Le Mans win in 1995 in their first attempt with a fleet of McLaren F1 GTRs. They ended up finishing 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 13th in their first attempt at Le Mans only being split in the top 5 by a Courage C34, in what was one of the most dominant Le Mans performances of all time. To celebrate this, McLaren has commissioned five Senna GTRs each wearing a retro livery reminiscent of the five liveries the cars wore in the 1995 Le Mans. McLaren Special Operations (MSO) have revealed each car took 800 hours to handpaint after they received rights to use logos such as Gulf and Harrods to recreate them on the new model. They also have five spoke OZ racing wheels which were worn by the original cars as well as gold accents on the interior to celebrate the gold plating of the original F1s engine bay. The liveries that have been recreated include the race-winning cars UenoClinic charcoal grey colour scheme and also includes special headlights to resemble the F1 GTRs spotlights. The yellow and green GTR resembles the famous 'Harrods Car' and the Gulf, Elf and Cesar Baldaccini liveries are also made to a tee. This subseries has been labelled as the Senna GTR LM, reminiscent of the F1 LM which was a road legal version of the original GTR, and are rumoured to have cost around £1.8million each as the standard Senna GTR is just over £1million.
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