Image: Radford
About a month ago, Radford unveiled its stunning 62-2 sports car, a modern makeover of the Lotus 62 racing car with modern materials and chassis. The company has already shown itself the Classic and Gold Leaf variants from the car. On Wednesday the track-focused John Player Special Edition was finally ready. This model features a 600 horsepower supercharged Toyota V6, dual clutch transmission, aero kit with full output, carbon fiber Dymag wheels and carbon ceramic brakes. It’s really crazy.
Image: Radford
The engine is a 3.5 liter Toyota V6 based on 2GR-FE, the same one that Lotus uses for its various Evora and Exige models. In the stock suction form, the engine is around 300hp, but Radford and Lotus have taken that up a few notches with some serious modifications. First, there is obviously a compressor. Inside the engine, however, the Radford gets special pistons, connecting rods and camshafts. To control everything, the company tuned the engine with a seriously aggressive calibration. It’s rowdy and ready for a really quick and fun trackday.
Image: Radford
Compared to the other less harsh versions of the Type 62-2, the JPS model has some wild body upgrades to keep the car on track. There’s a massive splitter at the front, the car has larger air intakes on the sides to allow the charged lump to swallow oxygen, and at the back there’s a diffuser as deep as the oceans. Without a separate rear wing it probably won’t do any decent race car lap times, but the Type 62-2 JPS is probably a good deal faster than you can squeeze out of it anyway. And that’s what matters at the end of the day.
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Image: Radford
This version of the car is said to drop below 2200 pounds, which brings its power-to-weight ratio to around 3.66 pounds per horsepower. That rate is a little better than a 1997 McLaren F1, so it’s probably good. I mean, sure, it’s not a BMW V12, and it didn’t win Le Mans, but this thing is guaranteed to be measurably better in every metric than F1 ever was. I think I know which one I would rather have. Mainly because the Radford will certainly not cost eight figures. There’s no word on what it’ll cost, but I’d bet orders of magnitude less than a McLaren. Only 12 of these hand-painted machines with JPS paintwork, so also rarer than the Macca!
The post Here is the most extreme version of the Radford 62-2 first appeared on monter-une-startup.
