Look at This Strange Supercar With a Sportbike Seating Position
The Drive ·
A Dutch startup is apparently serious about building a single-seater supercar that you straddle. The post Look at This Strange Supercar With a Sportbike Seating Position appeared first on The Drive .
Automotive startups are as common as billet at SEMA, but Dutch startup Sanrivatti has a unique gimmick. It’s developing a supercar with a motorcycle-style seating position. What Sanrivatti has coined as the “Apex Position” calls for the driver to straddle a central tunnel while still being fully ensconced in a cockpit. Sanrivatti first teased this concept earlier this year, but now we know a little more about this strange supercar.
Dubbed the Sanrivatti One, it has the outrageous specs that are obligatory in the supercar world. According to the company’s website , it’s targeting 800 horsepower at 9,000 rpm, as well as 516 pound-feet of torque, from a powertrain of unspecified design. The target dry weight is 2,425 pounds, and the targeted top speed is 205 mph.
Sanrivatti has also released renderings of the car, which don’t reveal any surprises. The body is a collection of airflow channels necessary to keep the One stable at that ambitious top speed. There’s a big rear spoiler hung off the back and an endurance prototype-style stabilizer fin that should also help with that. The cockpit is very narrow, which makes sense given the unusual seating position. It may also provide some aerodynamic benefits by reducing the car’s frontal area.
It’s still unclear when we’ll see the Sanrivatti One in production-ready form, but the startup has been testing its straddle seat with digital simulations and a modified 986 Porsche Boxster. Sanrivatti claims that simulations show that drivers get a much better view, seeing up to 3.2 times more of their surroundings at Silverstone’s Corner Three compared to 10 benchmarked hypercars and track cars. Being able to look further ahead is a huge benefit for track driving.
Most of this development work takes place at a new headquarters, in the Dutch city of Arnhem, which Sanrivatti opened in September. The facility has everything needed for building prototypes, according to a Sanrivatti press release, but the company hasn’t announced where production will take place. With Spyker also making a comeback, it’s possible that two supercars could be manufactured in the Netherlands at the same time.
As with all automotive startups, you shouldn’t count on Sanrivatti making it that far. Building cars is hard; it’s going to very interesting indeed to see how Sanrivatti makes its “Apex Position” crash-worthy, for example. But if it can get across the line, the Sanrivatti One will be like nothing else on the road or track.
The post Look at This Strange Supercar With a Sportbike Seating Position appeared first on The Drive .