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Originally Posted by dustinr
Radicals are awesome track cars, there's no denying that. 6:55 lap at The Ring is stellar. But as a street car, something you can drive around town? Not my first choice. That's like driving a shifter kart on the street. I bet in Europe you see Radicals being driven to the grocery store all the time; great date car too, "Sorry about the hair honey!" ..."What?" "Sor-ry bout the hair!"..."What?" ..."NEVER MIND, I'll tell you when we stop!" (hehe).
I like the idea of cars that have a compromise of both worlds. A car that turns, brakes and accelerates at 3G's like a track only car, and also has an enclosed cockpit, will probably have a stereo and a few frills like a street car, and you could drive it more than just weekends. That's way cool. Like the Dauer 962.
A race car that was converted into a street car with frills. The Areial Atom is another track/street car which would be a blast to drive like the Radical, but it wouldn't be fun as a daily driver. Maybe if Radical made an enclosed cockpit I'd be more thrilled about it.
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I think you're confused as to what that T1 is supposed to be. It's a Le Mans Prototype production car. Hell it's made by the folks that were pissed that Mercedes wouldn't let them leave the interior as bare carbon in the SLR. This thing will have zero creature comforts: no reclinable seats, no adjustable wheel (unless you count a removeable wheel which it will need so you can get in and out of it), no A/C, no stereo, no power anything (uncluding brakes or steering), no room (look at the picture of the rolling chassis you posted, that thing makes a Lotus Elise look like an Escalade), and so on. The road going manners will be awful... hell even the track going manners will be harsh... ever watch the ALMS prototypes? They bounce and hop all over the place on a smooth race track w/ tons of downforce! There's no way you're gonna get 3+G's of latteral handling without the car being a 1st rate kindey-buster.
The designers themselves call this an "exclusive ultra-high performance track car". Just because it might be road legal in the UK does not make it at all a street car... same as the Radical and the Atom... sure they're street legal, but nobody daily drives them.
The market for this car is simple: rich dudes that aren't rich enough to purchase former F1 car. Same market the Atom and the Radical are so successful in. But the T1 is going to be way too expensive for that market. If you've got the scratch for this car, you're going to buy a historical F1 car, or buy your own race team and be the test driver. If Ferrari decided there's a world-wide market of 400 for the Enzo, I'm gonna guess there's a world-wide market of 40 for this thing... and I seriously doubt these guys will ever be able to build more than just a prototype if that's the number they can expect to sell.
So yeah, it's a friggen cool car, in the same way Le Mans cars are cool cars, and it would be awesome if someone could make a car like that available to the masses, but I don't see it happening. Maybe if lowered the performance specs and offered it at half the cost, they'd have a shot.