I chuckle at the ridiculous horsepower figures given for the latest internet supercars.
(To make a long story short, the limitations of tires if nothing else means that increased engine power will pass the point of diminishing returns before it reaches the theoretical limit.)
In my Automation playthroughs, the jewel in the horsepower crown has been a 574 horsepower engine with development starting in the mid 1980s and, going by engineering time, being ready for mass production in the early 1990s. It’s a V8 rather than a V12.
Naturally, the car is a two-seat supercar with an inflation-adjusted price of over $300,000.
Enter this creative writing exercise.
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“Now, this sort of thing only happens once. We seek a partner, and can use the marque as an overall luxury one. We have a perfectly good plant for high-end, low value production, and we have the Folino brand. Otherwise, we run up a ton of debt trying to build a successor to the Power8 and hope lightning strikes twice.”
Samuele Lelli had heard a variation of that argument a million times before. From a business perspective, it made total sense.
Sell most of-but not all of your stake in L-F, then start or join a small engine tuner, and live your performance dream there.
But his heart didn’t want to put engines in Fords, Cadillacs or Tatras. What his heart wanted was to build a car from the ground up, a street car that could win the war. Leapfrog ahead, with the dream. The years he’d spent designing the Power8 had been the happiest of his life, and he wanted to keep going, to reach the goal of-
10,000 horsepower. Ten. Thousand. Horsepower.
Coiler's Creative Corner 