The Caparo T1 is an infamous car. The T1 was spontaneous – and not in a good way – and demanded perhaps too much from its driver. Yet it is a car that nowadays would probably be so in demand that Caparo wouldn’t be able to make enough of them.
The year is 2006 and the simply unbelievable T1 is revealed. It looks like no other car ever; an insectoid exoskeleton meets Le Mans prototype and goes to the Monaco Grand Prix. Most of the design is inherited from single seater racing cars, but the T1 was a two seater with an optional glass canopy and enclosed wheels that were far more in keeping with a Le Mans frontrunner.
The brains behind the operation were sound, too. Ex-McLaren bods brimmed the car with a real sense of tangible potential. And it was an absolute anoraks dream.
5-Way adjustable dampers, a carbon-fibre bodyshell, an aluminium honeycomb monocoque and the ability to create 875 kilos of downforce at a lukewarm 140 mph. With all this downforce it could corner and stop with up to 3Gs of force.
2007 was also a time where the most track-focused cars you could buy were the 997 Porsche 911 GT3 RS and the Ferrari F430 Scuderia. Compared to these two, the Caparo was so advanced and so far ahead of its time, not only in terms of performance but in terms of ambition.
The T1’s engine was a masterpiece. A 3.5 Litre V8 which was good enough for 575 hp and the engine would continue to rev to 10,500 rpm. This combined with a dry weight (yes, we know its cheating) of 490kg gave the Caparo a power-to-weight ratio of 1223hp per tonne. That is superbike levels of power-to-weight and it made the T1 just about the fastest road legal vehicle on four wheels.
Here’s the kicker. Back in 2007 it cost £235,000. Which in today’s money is a squeak over £300,000. The T1, as unrealistic as it seems, represents simply amazing value.
Since the T1, only one other hypercar has sought to emulate a Formula 1 car, and that is the two million pound Aston Martin Valkyrie. Yes, the Aston has 1000 bhp, but would it really be six times faster?
Just imagine how fast the T1 would be today with modern tyre technology, too. Roll up to a trackday in one and everyone else might as well pack it in. And that was another feather in the Caparo T1’s hat. It was road-legal. Barely, but legal enough to stick numberplates and a tax disc (when those were a thing) on.
But the T1 is again a memory. A lot of negative press centred around the T1, with multiple press incidents occurring, and timing killed the T1 dead. After 2007 came 2008 and no one had any money. Justifying a £235,000 car was impossible and the T1 slipped into the annals of history.
Interestingly the Aston Martin Valkyrie has experienced a similarly difficult gestation period. It seems channelling an F1 car’s spirit into a road car is quite the poisoned chalice. It sounds like a dream – it sounds like the easiest thing in the world to sell to the rich, yet no one has seemingly been able to pull it off.
The T1 was just too much for an automotive world unprepared for such a brutal performance paradigm shift. We were naïve and superstitious and scared, whereas today nothing shocks us; 2000 bhp electric cars are announced every other month and we don’t even flinch.
The bloody thing even had wing mirrors built into the body work enclosing each of its front wheels. If that’s not cool, then we don’t know what is.
Proper shame.
Kerbside 