La Dolce Veloce

Alright, this is starting to get a bit ridiculous. Those Italians working on the mysterious Project 1221 MF1 have apparently decided that building a car with 1000hp was not something they wanted to do…well at least, not when they could have more power. So, they bumped up the estimate for their turbine-powered supercar to a mind-blowing 1500hp. They’ll be employing an aerodynamic aid first pioneered on the Chaparral 2J (a.k.a. the ‘vacuum cleaner’) – the turbine engine will get some of its air from underneath the car, literally sucking the car down to the ground resulting in better traction (not to mention cleaner roads!). The entire press release can be found in the rest of this post.
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Project 1221, makers of the forthcoming MF1 supercar (as previously reported here) announced that their supercar will be powered by a gas turbine, though technically it could run on almost any fuel – even Vodka, they claim. They’ve also added a new model to the lineup; there will be the rear wheel drive, race car for the street coupe, and the larger four door model with all wheel drive and optional armor plating. One claimed advantage of the turbine, besides is smooth running, is the lack of any scheduled maintenance besides oil changes. No news yet on the styling of the car, all we know at this point are some technical specifications. The company’s website is here if you want more information.

Hear the words “Project 1221″ and what comes to mind? A cheesy sci-fi movie, perhaps? Probably not an Italian automaker. A visit to there website reveals little more than their vision of ‘encompassing land, water and air machines’ (err, ok). Italiaspeed was able to shed a little more light on this mysterious new company. It seems their first product will be a car with large luggage capacity. With somewhere around 1000 hp. Yeah. Add in all wheel drive and a price tag of more than half a million Euros, and you know this is not going to be your average grocery getter. The car, a two seat fixed-roof design, will be unveiled this summer, with customer units to be delivered starting in 2008.