2 minute read
Isuzu Moments
When Isuzu Made A V12 F1 Engine And Put It In A Ute
The year 1991 delivered something as special as it was strange: the V12 Como F1 Super Truck.
FORMULA1 drivers are unique. Their sport is all glamour and ludicrous speed. If punted into the Armco at 270km/h, their first emotion is annoyance. And at the end of a long, hot drive, their favourite thing is not to crack open a cold can but to firehose a couple of pals with pricey champers.
It is not very much like ute driving. And it is even less like ute building. None of that stopped Isuzu from aspiring to join the ranks of F1 engine suppliers in the late ’80s. And it was a lot more than just hopes and dreams.
Heading into the 1992 season, Lotus was looking for a new engine supplier— and Isuzu surprised everyone by revealing a secret project: a fully built, 158kg, 3.5-litre V12 quad-cam race engine that pumped out around 562kW at 13,500rpm.
It was called the P799WE and was exactingly constructed to comply to F1’s notoriously pedantic specs. Only Japan’s historic asset price bubble collapse in late 1991 stopped the partnership from happening.
The collapse was a crushing blow to Japan’s economy and an immediate death knell to Isuzu’s F1 hopes. The company then found itself with an F1 engine ready to go, and no car to put it in … but a lot of engineers with lot of time on their hands. Who knew utes.
They decided to put it in a pickup. But not just any pickup. An unhinged, yet brilliantly engineered, marvel: the Isuzu Como F1 Super Truck concept. Boasting scissor doors (of course), a mid-mounted engine and the sleek aeros of a sort of Stig/tadpole hybrid, the souped-up, impossibly fast ute’s speed and agility were evidence of Isuzu’s engineering chops. Sadly, it was never destined for production, but the engine survives, on display at Isuzu HQ in Yokohama, Japan: a crazed mutant, too weird to live, too inspired for the dream to ever truly die. You can pop in and see it on display from MondayFriday between 9am and 5pm.
