Legendary director of Holden design Richard Ferlazzo has sketched his latest visionary vehicle, a “time attack” Bathurst race car.
Ferlazzo says in Australia’s present motoring landscape, he laments the demise of the international motor shows, once a must-see opportunity for fans to savour Holden’s finest lines.
“The cessation of motor shows in Australia left a hole in our automotive culture in some ways,” he says.
“We lost a forum to showcase our passion and creativity to the Australian public with physical concept cars,” Ferlazzo admits.
The team of designers, and Holden engineers, was set the task of creating a virtual concept race car with the brief to not only honour Holden’s first Bathurst win 50 year ago, but also smash out a record lap time.
Holden says the concept was developed “entirely virtually, using sophisticated simulation technology” inside GMH’s Melbourne design studio.
“A large part of our work is ‘Advanced Design’ and we use this technology to develop concept designs for our parent company, General Motors,” Ferlazzo says.
“We have the ability to simulate a car’s appearance, technology and dynamics in convincing animations, which enables us to deliver better designs in a shorter time,” he adds.
Theoretically, the ‘Time Attack Concept’ would do 0-100km/h in 1.25 seconds, making it (probably) the fastest accelerating vehicle on the planet, and cracking a mystical 480km/h, achieved thanks to an absurd 1000kW and 3240Nm.
Power would come from four 250kW “Axial Flux Permanent Magnet Electric Motor Drives” mounted inboard of each 18-inch slick-tyre carbon-fibre wheel.
A 3D printed final design was made and a the concept set a fantasised Mount Panorama lap time of 1:29.3 (half a minute faster than record holder Shane Van Gisbergen’s 2016 McLaren record of 2:01.56).
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