I first heard about the IFR Aspid Supersport back when Motoring Weekly was in version 1 and formatted as a podcast through iTunes during 2009.
The car was designed and built in Spain by a team lead by an ex rally engineer whose resume includes Prodrive and the Mitsubishi World Rally team. The Supersport was the first development car that the company built and was kind of a homage to the spirit of the Lotus Seven, certainly the ethos is the same: lightweight, powerful and tight handling.
I initially reported that I thought that the car looked like a smaller version of the Plymouth Prowler however with heaps more power and technology. At the time the car was fitted with a Honda S2000 donor motor, gearbox and drivetrain, which is a reliable combination in normal trim, however IFR added in a Vortech supercharger to double the power. I looked at these when I had my S2000 as a way to increase the power and knew some owners who had gone down this path!
It’s construction centres around an aluminium spaceframe with honeycomb strengthening which has carbon fibre panels to cover the skeleton. The car came in at 740kg which is super lightweight (just over half the weight of an S2000) and combined with a 400hp motor, you can really understand why it could do a sub 3 second sprint to 100 km/h.
Another feature of the car was the braking system. On a normal sportscar there would be discs all round, possibly lightweight ones. IFR took the concept of motorcycle braking by utilising twin discs on the front. This was a great idea considering the size, weight and output of the vehicle – I could imagine the car just not wanting to scrub off speed when throwing it into a corner and no matter how good the handling is, going in too hot is always going to make a wild ride!
Styling wise, as I said, did remind me of a Prowler, especially the nose cone, however it wasn’t as extreme as some prototypes that never got to market. I could live with it if there was one in the driveway! I just wish that back in 2009, I could have headed to Spain and actually driven it and seen the difference between it and the donor vehicle.
This was the first car from IFR and in 2009 they were not only starting to sell a few but also use the car as a showcase for some of their build technologies, Computer Aided Design systems and other automotive equipment.
IFR are still making very low volume sportscars in Spain today which is a great sign that technological boundaries are always being extended all around the globe.
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