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IT TAKES A VERY SPECIAL CAR TO RAISE EYEBROWS IN MARBELLA WHERE Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Porsches are two a penny. The Tramontana R, Spain’s first home-grown supercar, fits the bill nicely. Even in Marbella, it is not everyday that you see what appears to be a tandem two-seater Formula One car with a canopy driving around. At a set of traffic lights near Puerto Banus, a pillion rider got off his scooter to take pictures of the car with his phone camera. The visible shock and awe on the faces of other drivers, was simply priceless.
NEW KIT ON THE BLOCK Like many fast cars, the Tramontana is named after a wind. Tramontana is a strong wind that blows at up to 200km/h through the mountains of the Catalonian region of North-east Spain where this car originates. The Tramontana story was born a decade ago as the seed
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of an idea in the fertile mind of company founder and designer, Josep Rubau, an automotive design graduate of the Royal College of Art who worked in VW’s design studio in Wolfsburg until 2000. During his time at VW, Josep dreamt of revitalising the Spanish specialist car industry with the country’s very first ever supercar. While most people today think of Spanish cars in terms of SEAT, the reality is that Spain has an automotive history as illustrious as any nation. Hispano Suiza and Pegaso immediately spring to mind, and although they no longer exist as car manufacturers, these two marques can lay claim to cars that rivalled Rolls Royce, Bugatti and then Alfa Romeo and Lancia in the early 20th Century and 1950s respectively. Drawings are one thing, financing the transformation from lines on paper into carbon-fibre, steel and rubber quite another. But Josep was fortunate enough to find a small group of like-minded people, including well-known business consultant, Alber Foncillas, who were willing to help him turn the project into reality. The design study debuted at Geneva in 2005, with a production ready car following a year later. The Tramontana R is the latest version, and has many improvements including a 92kg weight reduction to 1,268kg. For speed, add lightness was Colin Chapman’s mantra at Lotus. For more speed, add lightness and more power was Josep’s for the Tramontana project. His relentless quest to fulfil both these parameters resulted in the Tramontana R shedding a further 92kg from the weight of the 2006 Geneva Show car. 1,268kg leaves it 18kg heavier than the Pagani Zonda F, and 88kg heavier than the Koenigsegg CCX. In bhp/ton terms, the midengined Spanish car trails its Swedish rival, but what neither the CCX or Zonda F have is the massive 1,100Nm of torque
that accompanies the 720bhp of the in-house tuned Mercedes biturbo V12. The gearbox is the ubiquitous Italian-made six-speed CIMA unit, married to a sequential shift with its lever on the right-hand-side in Formula car style. Power is fed through a limited-slip differential, and the traction control system has four settings, one of which is Off! RAW SENSATION Just to keep drivers from getting too enthusiastic on cold tyres and with a cold engine, the ECU mapping restricts the motor to a mere 550bhp upon start-up. You have to push the Power button to summon the remaining 170 horses. When you do give the car full beans from rest, even with the adjustable traction control, the physics of rear-wheel-drive layout limits the 0-100km/h to 3.6 sec. Because of this, the 10.15 sec 0-200km/h time is
more indicative of the car’s real potential. Top speed is electronically limited to 325km/h. Because the Tramontana seats two people, its tall Mercedes V12 sits further back in the chassis than the motor of a Formula One race car. Because of this, front/rear weight distribution is 42/48 percent. Being a high downforce car, it’s Cd of 0.4 is no match for many of today’s family cars, but the upside is 240kg of downforce at 300km/h, and a lateral acceleration figure of 1.22 g on normal street tyres. The massively stiff carbonfibre centre tub weighs just 128kg and forms the backbone of the car. The tubular steel front and rear space frames are bolted to the tub. Torsional stiffness is an impressive 40,000Nm/degree of twist. The engine acts as a stressed member in the chassis, and the rear frame, with the big heavy motor, will sheer away from the
LIKE MANY FAST CARS, THE TRAMONTANA IS NAMED AFTER A WIND...
UNLIKE ANY OTHER This is a serious piece of kit with enough power and attraction that will change weather May 2009 | motoring
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