Gryphon Gear: Rare Beasts of the Track (SEEKING DESIGNER TO COLLAB)

[strop]

An earnest effort, an engineering marvel, a truly adult car for adults. A new direction for Gryphon Gear!

Over the past few months, we put our heads together and thought to ourselves, what does the world want in a car? The budget car market is becoming increasingly competitive, with increasingly more for less, with better efficiency, better drivability. Bells and whistles are now standard, and you’d be hard pressed to find a real market contender in the family car market that doesn’t have six airbags, TC, ABS, Bluetooth, digital file format compatibility, climate control, cruise control, reverse sensors or cameras, and so on and so forth. In addition, with generally higher gas prices the world around, a guzzler really hits the hip pocket, hence the demise of the large family sedans favoured by, in Australia, such manufacturers as Holden and Ford.

The world of Automation has several contenders in every single market, but if I were to highlight one particular well-known Automation company that embraced the philosophy of more for less, of sensibility, reliability and practicality rolled into one, it would be Žnoprešk Avto. While cheap, a Žnoprešk is unmistakable with its classic European lashings and authoritative square lines, its corporate image.

You see, I live in Australia. Here, not all of us spring for that kind of thing. So while we greatly admire the Žnoprešk way, we figured a car more relevant to our market would be something that could take the fight to, say, the real-life contributions from Korea, namely the ever facelifting Hyundai and Kia. They, too, have had the European treatment in the sharpness of their trim and styling, but retained a certain sleekness that has captured the local market, if the sales figures are anything to go by. Where the big ships Camry, Falcon, Commodore and Magna used to be the go to cars, now we have the compact to mid-size Optima and i40. Those are the kind of cars we should be competing with, if we want to carve ourselves a foothold in the car market of the future.

Therefore, it is our pleasure to present to you the Tømtæ, a Reasonably Priced Mid-Size Family Sedan with all the things you would expect as standard, with superior economy, reliability and safety, for less! Also comes with Superfluous Characters You Don’t Know How To Pronounce (or really, because this is an international community, you do, but you have no idea what they’re doing in this context), because all the trendy new models come with all kinds of syntax errors like what?

http://i1207.photobucket.com/albums/bb476/stropmd/Tomte%20-%20S-1_zps796n8p3g.png http://i1207.photobucket.com/albums/bb476/stropmd/Tomte%20-%20S-2_zps3kma9xl6.png

[size=85]Sharp! Sexy! Sensible and Generic![/size]

You can tell when a car has been Europeaned Up when the grilles and the fixtures start evoking a flow of line, yet attaining a sharpness of detail where an exhaust outlet ceases to be a mere pipe and becomes instead of work of Sculpted Art. At least, that is what one might have said if they looked at this car with its Cheap and Cheerful price tag. They would argue: What would the point of fancy exhausts be, with a market-standard aluminium 2.4L i4 DOHC 16v VTEC? Even one that puts out a grunty 205Nm at 3500rpm over a perfectly smooth torque curve that culminates in a hearty 149hp @ 6000rpm? Well, such is our attention to detail, that we followed Mazda’s lead, with their engineering marvel 4-2-1 exhaust manifold to maximise the potential of resonance (and I’m not even going to pretend I understand any of that so let’s just move on before I embarrass myself)… the upshot of that is that the fancy exhaust outlets aren’t just salad dressing, they’re integral to the car’s function and excellent economy! It’s also the ONLY component in which I adjusted the quality slider at all (to +2), so I thought I had better highlight this fact for all you Quality Slider Police

Laden as it is with all the gear a lazy human who doesn’t particularly enjoy driving for driving’s sake demands in this day and age, with a nice robust all steel chassis and more safety than locking your toddler in a plastic bubble and not exposing them to germs ever, the standard trim, the Tømtæ S (S stands for Sexy, you understand), weighs in at 1440kg (about as much as an Ascension Mephisto), yet returns a frugal 6.3L/100km on regular pump gas 91RON. All this, from our faithful i4 (which we affectionately named Pudding), mated to a 5 speed automatic driving the front wheels for maximum excitement and supple road feel, has the Tømtæ rocketing from 0-100km/h in just 10.4 seconds (plenty fast enough for fighting peak hour gridlock, I assure you). You’ll be blasting past the mid-city traffic in style, and probably on the Wrong Side of the Road!

[size=85]Have you ever wondered why all those flashy pictures of cars in brochures don’t have any traffic in them? Let’s just say, the ones that do don’t have much to offer in the Go department…[/size]

Cars like the Optima and the i40 have a recommended sale price of about 34,000AUD. Our Tømtæ, ever equivalent and we would like to claim Rather A Bit Superior, could go for as little as 29,999AUD! How could we manage such a feat, you ask!? Feast your eyes on these statistics!

Also, with a whopping 786L of cargo volume, this car is more than capable of fitting an Adult Human Sized* object in the trunk, if you want to do your wet work Discreetly and Anonymously!**

[size=85]*Of Reasonable Proportions
**Not part of our official advertising campaign[/size]

All this said, we turned the car over to our tame racing driver, Kai Kristensen, for a real shakedown. With his help, we tuned the car’s track credentials up a notch, achieving a fine balance between Drivability and Not Being Boring As Shit because Your Mom/Wifey/Significant Other Pressured You into buying a Nice and Sensible car instead of that boy racer you wanted but your wallet couldn’t afford because you Have A Mortgage/Are Renting Forever. Did I not say at the very start that this was a truly Adult Car for Adults? But for the little kid in you that likes leaning into the corners, we’ve eked as much as can be gotten out of the Macpherson front Torsion Bear rear setup (if Honda can do it, we can too!) and provided you the very best balance possible between drivability, sportiness and comfort, and none of that Spine Chilling Ear Grinding Scrapage you get in so many so-called production cars these days! Kai was so ecstatic with the road feel that he somehow managed to roll the car and turned the Tømtæ into a Toasty wreck… after which testing was of course aborted… anyway, trust me, the car handles real good. Just right for a family car for adults, and not kids who like putting cars on two wheels…

Anyway! You’ve heard the spiel, now experience it for yourself! The new standard of Mass Produced Family Sedan, Gryphon Gear’s vision of the future! The Tømtæ, all yours for just 29,999AUD [size=85]plus stamp duty and on-road costs and window tinting will cost you 550 extra and do you want the chrome trim pack so you can see where the dials are? That’s another 975[/size].

CALL TODAY!

[size=85]With apologies to Kia for shamelessly ganking most of their poster featuring the 2015 Cerato…[/size]

[nialloftara]

Someone call the vet! Strop’s caught some horrible form of brain fever!

[maffc]

Pmsl over the naming

[strop]

Rumour has it that the fruits of Gryphon Gear’s intensive R&D into active aero and suspension technologies has borne fruit… in the form of an FR car that laps Nordschleife in under 7 minutes! Rumour also has it that it has a unique 5.8L turbo i6 which runs on 98RON and even comes with a muffler. And that while it has well over 1hp:kg, and generates so much torque enthusiastic driving will probably result in a six figure annual tyre budget despite top class traction control, it has razor sharp, ultra precise handling as a result of careful balancing and a temptation resisted to simply go nuts with the displacement. And yet, it will still have a top speed of nearly 380km/h and have a fuel economy of about 16L/100km thanks to active aero technologies.

But tuning on this model is far from done. All we have proven so far is that it is well within the realm of possibility. It remains to be seen how far we can take the concept.

Rumour also has it that the road-friendly version of Mercury is nearing Phase II completion, and, as promised, is every bit the challenge to the upcoming Hennessey Venom F-5 it promised to be. The Phase I prototype made waves at Geneva, an unprecedented 2hp:kg bare bones no-fancy-tricks racer. But to get that kind of power to weight ratio required pulling all the stops out on the engine and push the durability of the parts to the utmost limits. That won’t do on a road going car, especially, again, one that should run a maximum of 98RON and have a muffler. So the engine was retuned, bored out, destroked, and the turbo balanced (but no less imposing), to form a unit with a much higher reliability (40), but still produce 2269hp. But the real magic lies in the tricky and newly developed aero, being as slippery as possible but through clever arrangement of active canards and undertray, this is a car that has zero lift all the way up to its top speed of 500km/h. And not only does it do a 13 second standing km, it’ll also do Nordschleife in under 7 minutes (it’ll also reach 390km/h along Schwedenkreuz, and a staggering 480km/h along Dottinger Hohe). This is the hallowed land between the road rockets and the track cars we’ve been seeking all along, and it’s coming to Gryphon Gear.

EVEN MORE SHOCKING NEWS: Both of these cars feature cabins you can actually sit in (sport, 0 quality). No, of course there’s no entertainment, they’re still hardcore track cars, but they have proper seats. And proper sporting interior, with no more bits that stab you in the leg whenever you turn!

[JasonPoland]

I’m kinda new here, yet I already took part in the Pikes Peak competition that you’ve prepared. After seeing all the cards I read everything here, and there’s only one thing to say.

youtube.com/watch?v=Xm_dS-wEFvs

I can just bow down on my knees, hide in shell and use Rollout to get the hell away, cause there’s no chance I’ll be even close both in design or engine tuning.

[strop]

After some months of further development, it’s with much pleasure and more than a little relief (seriously, 200+ fixtures on a car body will make just about any PC chug…) that I’m able to show you the Stage II development of Mercury.

As you may know, Mercury debuted at the Automation Geneva Car Expo. It was designed to shock and awe on every level, from the aggressive neo-retro Lambo-esque styling, to the unprecedented 2:1 hp:kg ratio. It was a true fire-breathing road rocket with no safety whatsoever, and certainly not road legal, but the prototype did feature as an exhibit in some events, including the Pikes Peak Automation Hillclimb, where, well, it was very fast in a straight line (a quarter mile of under 8 seconds!), but rather more difficult to handle in the corners.

The aim for this car was always to turn it into a road legal, streetable ultra-mega-hyper car, and the new halo car from Gryphon Gear. For this to happen, we did have to pay a little attention to issues of accessibility as well as safety to at least meet the minimum contemporary standards of the market, but do so in such a way that it did not compromise our vision. Thus, the power:weight ratio was replaced by a number of less abstract goals: a top speed of 500km/h, and lapping the Green Hell in under 7 minutes. That was always part of the plan for Gryphon Gear: to bridge the gap in the different worlds of performance, the track-oriented cars like the P1, 918, LaFerrari, Zonda, etc. and the straight line rockets like the Hennessey Venom, SSC Tuatara and so forth. Not to say that the latter cars are slow around the track by any measure, but relatively speaking, it is doubtful they would match the kind of times a hypercar would achieve, just like it is well known that any of the hypercars from the first group would not even blip 400km/h unmodified, nor were they intended to. The segment of cars that could break the apparent barrier between both worlds is vanishingly small, and possibly only notably occupied by technological trailblazers, Koeniggsegg, but, well, we don’t really have any official data on that.

However, we’ve got data on this (fictional) car!

[size=150]The Lowdown[/size]

The block is based very much on the original Caduceus prototype, but instead of running a maximum stroke, the block has been chopped and rebalanced accordingly, so now its dimensions are 103x102, to give a displacement of 6799cc. In-house developed dual scroll turbos with dimensions 84.8/73.5, running unrestricted boost (tops out at 2.44 bar) make for a somewhat uncomfortable looking torque tsunami maxing out at 2208Nm @ 6600rpm. UItimately, 2259hp for a shave under 1290kg makes for a power: weight ratio of over 1751hp:ton. With turbo kicking in at around 4700rpm up to a redline of 8400rpm, cruising around town is still a relatively gluttinous affair, with a mixed fuel consumption of over 20L/100km, but that’s hardly surprising. It probably consumes far more than that when properly given the boot, provided you have the stones to do so, and the skill not to promptly steer it into the nearest barrier. What we found most surprising was that we’ve been able to adapt the same transmission parts that we used for Mephisto, for use in Mercury, due to their almost identical wheelbase and characteristics, down to similarities in torque loads. As usual, we’ve stuck to a six speed gearbox, as this provided the best mix between economy and performance.

You’ll also notice that despite an even more ballistic turbo setup, the comfort rating is rather a fair bit higher than our previous models. That’s because as the newest halo car and our first, I suppose, proper attempt to inject our vision into the larger super(er)car market, we’ve actually gone into the trouble to give this car a proper sporting interior, as opposed to the original Mephisto and Nightfury, which were pretty much stripped and ready to race, and not like anything you’d ever think to drive on the street. Sketches of the cabin will be revealed at a later stage, but suffice to say, given the sheer amount of acceleration the car is capable of in every direction, occupants will be firmly seated, firmly strapped in and the driver’s view will be a bit more akin to that of a pilot than that of a driver. It also has proper air-conditioning for a change! However, if you think we’d put in a radio or sat-nav, you’re sorely mistaken. The only button pressing entertainment you’ll have in this car is tweaking your driving aids profile. More on this later.

As a side note, safety, too, is hugely improved, and just might actually meet proper NCAP standards now. Additionally you’ll be able to take it to track days, but it’ll need a few extras if you want it to be formally race ready. There’s no need for us to add those things ourselves, because the kind of person who drives this car professionally is likely to have their own team and equipment suppliers.

This model is dubbed Mercury 500 because yes, it has a top speed of precisely 500km/h. Forget 290mph, that’s nigh 311mph right there.

You may have noticed the unusually narrow front tyres. This is due to an extremely light front end. On that note, we’ve emulated the aerodynamic principles of the Deltawing and used some witchcraft to create a minimal drag, zero lift system with active flaps to significantly improve cornering performance. But almost none of that is visible from the outside, with the exception of the bumper canards (with accompanying vortex generator), naturally to create a turbulent air barrier over the side of the car.

The air is then streamlined into a more planar flow before most of it is stripped into the side vents, facilitating the engine’s monstrous cooling requirements. You may also note that the Mercury is designed to be as flat as possible, resulting in an incredibly low seating position. Unladen and with tyres at optimal pressures, the car is barely 1080mm tall!

Additionally, the pop-up headlamps have been retained but refined further. Their operation is generally elective, but potentially helpful in the darkest of conditions, and they actually swivel on a longitudinal axis, resulting in relatively unobtrusive lights that do not contribute significantly to drag.

Little of the rear has been changed, except to refine the lines slightly. Otherwise, I was already happy with the overall principle of it, the aggression, the stance, the obscenely large exhaust port (which is a necessity, given that this car still requires dual 6" exhaust!) We still do NOT recommend standing directly behind the car when it starts up or revs.

Thanks to its shape, intentionally or otherwise, this car truly embraces the impracticality and wretched all-round visibility of the supercars of old. And no, like hell we’d weigh it down with cameras. You’ll just have to rely on skill to navigate your way around. And you may have room for one passenger, but the interior of the entire front end is actually purely aerodynamic venting. But then again, it should have been painfully obvious that this was not the car you were ever going to put your golf clubs in. This is a real GG car, unparalleled performance crammed into the madness of the 90s.

Putting our money where our mouth is, here is the proof. The kicker is, we’re only using electric LSD, active sway bars, cooling flaps and active wing. The springs themselves are progressive springs, which might strike one as an unusual choice given this is supposed to be an extreme performance car, but given our setup, there’s extremely little tolerance between riding smoothly over the smaller bumps and a crashy, unsettled ride. Likewise, the dampers are gas monotube. We’ve eschewed the “active suspension” choices to switch between driving modes, partially because of weight, partially because we stubbornly refuse to cater to a client base that wants cars for all worlds. Sorry people, you’ll have to love it as it is, or leave it.

If somebody had told me that a car with almost no downforce could lap the Green Hell in under 7 minutes, I would have scoffed, but after the integration of active aero (the main trick here), it just goes to show a little ingenuity goes a long way. Though yes, we do admit, the tyres on this car are still a fair bit more expensive than the road going compounds on many of our rival cars, but then again, we made a decision to use our own tyre supplier quite early on, because getting this much power down allows for very little compromise. Actually, if you drove this car anywhere near the way it was intended, you’d have to be prepared to drop at least six figures on the tyre and engine maintenance annually…

This being said, as usual we beg you, please, please do not purchase this car to cruise it around town and perform overblown and ultimately futile mating rituals. Sure, it’s going to be ultra rare, and it’s going to be ultra expensive, there’s no really helping that. And yes, probably the majority of our prospective customers are overly wealthy kids from China/the Arab Emirates who inherited more money than they could imagine and will probably crash this car. On that note, that’s why we actually vet our customers based on driving skill and suitability: with that little drivability and that much HOLY SHIIIIIIIIIT, even after all the ABS, TC, ESC and launch control, there’s also no point getting this car if there’s not at least a reasonable chance you won’t wreck it and earn yourself an early one way ticket to the afterlife. Unless of course, you’ve already written a will that donates all of your obscene wealth to an effective charity, in which case, we won’t necessarily stop you.

But really, we don’t want this car to be crashed at all. We do want it to be driven hard and driven fast. And we’d be flattered if it scared you half to death, but not actually caused the death of you.

SPECIFICATIONS:

Drivetrain:
6799cc Quad Cam DI 40v Bi-Turbo V8
98RON minimum
2259hp @ 8100rpm
2208Nm @ 6600rpm
Power/ton: 1751.4hp:ton
6 spd double clutch sequential (flappy paddles)

Chassis:
Layout: MR
Seats: 2, racing CF with custom molded inserts
Body/frame: Carbon fiber monocoque chassis and skin
Steering: 2WS variable electronic assist
Tires: GG-supplied semi-slicks 245/30R20, 385/20R20
Suspension: Double wishbone, front and rear. Progressive springs. Gas monotube dampers. Active sway bar.
Brakes: Carbon Ceramic 6 pots. Front 7", Rear 10"

Dimensions:
Ride height: 181mm
Wheelbase: 2707mm
Curb Weight: 1289.8kg
Weight Distribution: 24.4F/75.6R

Safety:
Driving aids: ABS, TCS, DSC, Launch control
5 point harness
Rollcage built into frame

Performance:
0-100km/h: 2.3s
0-200km/h: 4.7s
0-300km/h: 7.3s
Qtr Mile: 8.16s @ 323km/h
0-400km/h: 11.2s
1000m: 13.68s
Full mile: 18.5s
Top speed: 500.0km/h
100-0km/h: 26.8m

Standard Features:

[ul]]Fully customisable driving aid profile with quick configure and advanced configure streams to determine slip, weight transfer characteristics and throttle mapping/:m]
]Manettino dial racing style CF wheel with adjustable steering lock and characteristics/:m]
]HUD dashboard/:m]
](Proper) air conditioning/:m]
]Power windows/:m]
]Revolving pop up headlights/:m]
]LED fog lights/:m][/ul]
Optional Features:

[ul]]24/7 on-call service and logistics team for international maintenance requirements/:m]
]Both L and R hand drive available/:m][/ul]
MRSP: Approximately 3.25M AUD

[VosNox]

You cocksucker. Thats fuckin beautiful

[strop]

And all with (almost) adequate cooling, biatch!

[HighOctaneLove]

I was worried about you Strop as you’d seemed to have gone dark since the new update with all the new toys. I’m pleased to say that the wait has been worth it

[VosNox]

I was worried you’d beaten my record. I was about to swim to Australia and beat you to death with a drop bear.

[strop]

I’ve no interest in that record, as I’m only inclined to build cars that have enough ventilation to make more than one pass lol.

Also it’s taken me a while to come to grips with this build. But don’t worry, aside from that April Fools car, you’ll be seeing some true GG cars in the future!

[Cheeseman]

Damn nice. I expect every person with more money than sense would drool over that. Or spit their lunch out all over their screen (like I nearly did) when they read 1751hp:kg towards the top of the post, which sounds a bit too brutal, even for Gryphon Gear

[strop]

@Cheeseman

…sounds a bit too brutal, even for Gryphon Gear

W-w-what? Too brutal for GG???

Rubbish!

But if you feel that is too much for your speed, don’t despair. We do have another car coming out that is much, erm, “milder”. By which I mean a flame spitting, turbo spooling, tyre shredding megacar the likes the world has never seen… Wait

Oh, you’ll understand when I reveal it!

[Kubboz]

[quote=“strop”]W-w-what? Too brutal for GG???

Rubbish!
[/quote]

Well, 1751hp per kilogram could be kinda extreme, I kinda get Cheeseman’s point.

[strop]

OH!

Oops, I thought I had fixed that I can only imagine what would happen if it were 1751hp:kg… tyres explode wheels fall off car launches off into ionosphere

[strop]

[size=150]You will have me? I shall have you![/size]

[size=200]T[/size]he world seems to have progressively abandoned a certain purity and loyalty in the ever evolving face of cutting-edge performance. The ancient wisdom that decreed that FR would reign supreme is all but a distant memory, consigned to the chest-beating primitive bellows of tail-happy American muscle and peppy miniature Japanese budget models. Enthusiasts fondly look upon these with a mixture of all kinds of emotions and adjectives. Lairy, bezerk, grunty on one hand. Sprightly, fun, balanced on the other.

All euphemisms for the fact they all seem to get left in the dust by just about every other format bar the obvious econobox FF. Is it just a tradition that supercars are almost invariably MR? Or that there are so many dominant AWD cars in performance? Perhaps you might point out that the newest crop of America’s finest actually do hustle around the track superbly, but is not telling that reporters would care to emphasise such a point? When it doesn’t whiff of a certain kind of desperation, it merely highlights the historical precedent that they are desperate to shed. And let us not get the elements of the picture mixed up: such things as the Viper ACR and Corvette ZR-1 are definitely fast in every way shape and form. You could even say they’ve truly shaken off the hoodoo of horrid engineering and “bloatware” from the last few decades. And they’re quite amazing value, at that. But the ground they break is a world apart from the ground being broken by the cars even greater than the supercars.

If I expanded this picture beyond the rather simplistic frame I’ve drawn up, there would be a few more significant contributions to the FR supercar world, such as the classic range of Aston Martin, notably the One-77, and the DB9 it was based on. It would also include the Lexus LFA. Again, wonderful cars with great performance, but, for their hype and their pomp, I can’t help but feel they fall short of the mark. And the real point is, pretty much ever since the Miura, when one says ‘supercar’, most people think ‘not front-engined’. And so it seems to have become firmly esconced in practice, with each new generations of superlatives. The real question is, where’s the FR hypercar?

The good news is, I just so happen to have one for you.

[size=200]Introducing: [color=#FFBF40]Ascension Daeva[/color][/size]

Are you a motoring purist? A true fan of the beloved FR and its versatility and driving characteristics? Are you tired of making compromises whenever talking about your FR cars versus just about everything else when you know they’re just not as fast around the track, that there’s no true FR car that’s made a real impact on performance benchmarks? Have you ended up resorting to nationalistic redneck rants about how to “drive your car properly” and “always use the red key”, or expounding on petty unbalanced comparisons like how your track-tuned top level trim car in slicks can spank the hell out of the base model stock tyres AWD “overpriced Japanese piece of shit”?

Daeva is your new goddess, and she is well displeased with your sins.

As the amalgamation of everything that a road-legal FR car has never achieved, Daeva is truly unique. She is unique from the point of view of the automotive industry, being the first FR car to achieve hypercar performance on par with the likes of a Huayra, Agera, 918, P1, LaFerrari, and now Aventador. This is a car which represents a broadening of the GG repertoire: adding balance and poise on a knife-edge to our customary brute thrust, to yield an unequivocal sub 7-minute Nordschleife time. This is achieved through a combination of a megawatt powerplant, GG’s exclusive tyre compound, a stiff and ultralight CF chassis, and a complement of LSD, active wing, flaps and sway bars to enhance cornering and braking. In fact, Daeva uses an independent split flaps and wing system to provide downforce where required, when required.

You may have noticed the subtle shark fin on the roof. Daeva is also unique from the point of view of GG itself for many reasons, one being that this is the first GG production car to have an inbuilt infotainment system of any kind. This one has integrated into it the hydro-electronic control interface. It includes a basic 4 speaker (2 tweeter, two sub) system (for which we obviously outsourced supply), but as with every part of GG, we’ve selected a top end company supplying superior parts. Daeva also happens to have a boot though, admittedly, access to it via the rear hatch is somewhat delicate, as the rear wing has a fair amount of hydraulics attached to it, so in reality, there’ll be no shoving any IKEA tallboy flatpacks in there and tying the bootlid down! But a boot is a boot, and while it carries only a space saver, these are the first hints of a car aimed for a wider (and I’m aware of the somewhat esoteric perspective from which I say wider) range of real-world uses than driving to the track. It also has proper bucket racing seats which are individually moulded to each occupant, and our usual recommended minimum 5 point harness, so you’ll be just as planted stationary as when you’re pulling 2 lateral g at 270km/h.

Another unique point is the build costs. This is the first GG car to also have a reduced engineering and production budget (that is to say, the first of the official GG lineup in which I have not simply yanked the sliders to maximum). This represents a saving of in excess of 50K in total costs, or nearly 20K in material costs plus about 1200 production units for each model, pointing towards a reduced price relative to the hypercar crop, and, importantly for a small factory of increasing reputation, increased production. But true to the GG ethos, we did not skimp on the engine or the drivetrain, nor our usual tyres.

Now for the biggest surprise yet: Daeva comes in two trims. While their official names are [color=#0040FF]Aesma[/color] and [color=#FF0000]Indra[/color], it may be easier to think of them as the “European” and “American” version.

[size=150]Aesma vs Indra: What’s the difference?[/size]

Even at the pinnacle of performance, there is often more than one approach to yield the top result. The other cars I’ve mentioned here already demonstrate this in abundance. Daeva takes this one step further, by producing a hypercar with the same chassis and performance package… and two mutually exclusive philosophies, encapsulated by their engines and their drivetrains. Both are front-engined, RWD 6 speeders. Both engines produce exactly 1MW at peak. And with almost identical weights and dynamics, both cars are capable of sub 7-minute Nordschleife laps. But both take completely different paths to achieve this.

[color=#0040FF]Aesma[/color] (the European)

This is the path of forced induction, an angry 5.8L i6 with a carefully boosted turbo to yield over 1300Nm from just a smidge over 3000rpm almost all the way to the redline of 8000rpm. Mated to the already proven minimal lag and shift pause sequential DCT, Aesma is a flappy-paddle affair, and with the launch and traction control keeping busy with all that boosted power surging to the wheels, she’ll rocket to the quarter mile in under ten seconds. Of the two, Aesma is more economical, with mixed economy figures of 14.2L/100km, quieter, and more reliable. But the turbo and the lag saps responsiveness, and exits from corners were a little more difficult.

[color=#FF0000]Indra[/color] (the American)

This is the path of 'MURICA, FUCK YEAH. While not quite an OHV affair (GG doesn’t, and generally can’t do OHV, especially not a megawatt engine!), this is a giant NA V8 (crossplane, naturally), the big weiner, the Viper-dwarfing blockbuster. 545ci of beer swilling, fire breathing oversquare grunt, with a power curve that progresses evenly through the revs until the business end where all hell breaks loose until the redline of an astonishing 9100rpm. With an engine like this, of course, no self-respecting driver with a giant pair is going to insist on any less than rowing their own, hence this also is the first GG car with a trim that offers a traditional manual transmission, with the shortest, crispest throws and the most precise clutch travel we could find. Thus its speed off the mark is only as fast as your shifting is good, and the fuel economy is probably just as bad, if not worse than a Viper’s, at a smidge under 20L/100km, or just under 12mpg. It’s also a bit louder, by which I mean literally 10 times as loud, probably deafening you as the sound reverberates around the cabin and rattles your very soul. Part of the reason for the loudness, aside from the bigger engine, more cylinders and higher redline, is the less restricted exhaust, a rigorously engineered and balanced tubular affair that also contributes to a significant increase in price for this model. But the response is unadultered, the pedal feel more predictable, and thus the car more controllable, even, and perhaps especially, if you want to kick the tail out and throw up some smoke. Testing revealed that even with the manual shifting, this was the quicker car around a technical track, with the notable theoretical exception of Pikes Peak, due to the power loss suffered by NA engines from the altitude.

Where Aesma seemed like the relative, and I do mean relative, paragon of refinement, we felt the Indra embraced a vision so overbearingly testosterone-fuelled we had our new testing and racing consultant, Touring Car racer Sam Neil, write the foreword of Indra’s service manual himself. I don’t dare proofread it.

Either way, Daeva stands as a demonstration of the impossible made possible, and beyond that, a duality of possibilities. While the two trims appeal to vastly different types of people, whether it be the one favouring the cutting edge of technology, or the one favouring a visceral, tactile rawness, all are united by their love of fast and pure, the original front-engined, rear wheel drive sports coupe taken to its ultimate extreme.

SPECIFICATIONS:

You may have noticed that despite being manual and apparently slower in a straight line, the [color=#FF0000]Indra[/color] is significantly more expensive. Why? That’s by virtue of the race headers, which make it significantly more time consuming. As far as a sports car experience goes, Indra is also more engaging, with a fuller, more dramatic exhaust note, more of a hardcore driver’s car. And it’s faster around the track (6:58.57 around Green Hell compared to [color=#0040FF]Aesma[/color]'s 6:59.87, from a standing start). Not to mention that this is a row your own with hypercar performance, which is unheard of.

As a result of this discrepancy, Indra will be the rarer of the two trims, where production is expected to total approximately 50 units a year, there will be about 30 Aesma for every 20 Indra.

[Nolli]

Great backside! Looks really good.

I also like the presentation and the comparison.

[HighOctaneLove]

Nice work Strop, I’ll take one Daeva Indra thanks, to help encourage our engineers to do a better job!

[NormanVauxhall]

All that quality slider abuse makes my Znopresk gland hurt so badly

Intresting work however.

[Kubboz]

You seem to have made a typo which makes my Skoda 50 times more powerful.

@strop

Both engines produce exactly 1kW at peak.