Autocar Magazine - "Frightweight"

Radical's new SR8 has 383bhp and weighs just 500kg. It scared the hell of Bill Thomas

The people at Powertec, Radical's in-house engine company, call their new RPA 2.6-litre V8 engine "Christine". The name comes from the horror novel and film by Stephen King - and it's appropriate.

On the Radical Motorsport website (www.radicalsportscars.com) there's a page in the 'V8 Project' section called 'Christine turns out to be a superbitch'. There you can read about the first dyno programme the Powertec team put the engine through. To get to the heart of it, the maximum figure recorded was 383bhp at 10,000rpm. Yep, that qualifies in the superbitch category alright, and the new Radical SR8 chassis it'll be driving, only weighs about 500kg.

Radical is moving into serious new territory with this little V8. In simple terms 'Christine' is a 72º fusion of two 175bhp Suzuki GSXR1300 Hayabusa engines. In fact, only the cylinder heads and barrels from the Suzuki are used: the rest is designed and produced by Powertec. Features include a billeted flat-plane crank-cases and a dry sump system using F1-style side-mounted scavenge pumps. It weighs only 92.6kg.

The whole car continues the Radical tradition of developing and building high quality, expertly engineered machinery. You will want an SR8 and Autocar was privileged to be given a short drive of the prototype at Bruntingthorpe Proving Ground. The engine cover is lower and gives better airflow over the new twin-plane rear wing. The front end has been re-designed to improve downforce too, meaning two-and-a-half times more downforce than its SR4 predecessor.

The engine sounds deeper and harder than any bike, with a hint of Ferrari V8 wail. Acceleration is shocking - this is a seriously fast car, in a totally different league to the SR4 I'm familiar with. The engine give a progressive, tractable, linear punch, with plenty of torque available above 4000rpm (torque peak is 207lb ft at 6800rpm). Boy does it rev. You can tell it wants to spin to 15,000rpm and beyond in one single, seamless surge.

Nervous and circumspect, I didn't get anywhere near the car's limit, but three hot laps with test driver Michael Vergers gave me a good idea of its capability. You can really feel the extra downforce in high-speed corners, and that was with it wound back a couple of notches. We got close to 170mph on the straight. It will be monstrous through somewhere like the Craner Curves at Donington.

And the price? Cheap, at £58,515 including VAT. I say 'cheap', because this is the greatest track car in creation, no question. Radical has sold 15. I'm still shaking as I type this, five hours after half-falling out the thing. Steven King's novel always scared the heck of me.