Elemental RP1

British start-up sports car company Elemental launches the lightweight, track-focused RP1 roadster. We find that to try it is to like it A new sports car, about which, on the face of it, there’s nothing unusual. New small sports car manufacturers arrive all the time, but the first fruit of this one has got a little something about it that you remember when you drive away afterwards. This car, the Elemental RP1, is a bit special.In its technical make-up the RP1 is similar to, but not exactly like, several other lightweight roadsters. The tub is a carbonfibre one – of the good sort, not the cheaper sort, but I’ll come back to that – with steel subframes hung from either end.The front subframe supports the cooling systems and front suspension, which comprises double wishbones and inboard spring and damper units.Behind the two-seat cabin sits the rear suspension – double wishbones but not inboard dampers - and the powertrain.This is one of two key areas where Elemental is a touch unusual. Instead of a transverse engine and the gearbox it would get on a road car – as you’d find in an Ariel Atom, KTM XBow or Zenos E10 – the Elemental’s engine, a 2.0 Ford Ecoboost unit, is mounted longitudinally and drives the rear wheels through a six-speed Hewland gearbox that’s mounted behind it. Which all means that the engine can be set lower in the chassis. The BAC Mono is similar, although it is only a single-seater.Where the Elemental differs again from the light car norm is in the amount of underbody aerodynamics it offers. There’s a long diffuser at the front of the car and another one at the rear, and the claim is that at 100mph the RP1 will generate 200kg of downforce.Weight is claimed at 580kg, with a 47% front, 53% rear balance. And given that the Ecoboost engine is tuned to produce 320bhp, the car should get along fairly well. Elemental is yet to produce a full set of numbers because this is a prototype, but it estimates 2.8sec 0-60mph and 6.4sec 0-100mph times, which is what you’d hope it should do. As I write in July the company is working on a production-spec car, with deliveries expected early in 2016.

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