The diminishing quantity of fossil fuels hasn’t been a deterring factor for a few automobiles manufacturers. Where some are trying to extract that extra rotation of the crank with every drop of fuel, others are simply trying to flaunt their engineering prowess rolling out mammoth fuel guzzling road missiles. Cars like the Lamborghini Aventador Super Veloce rumoured to be 100 bhp over the current model and Bugatti pushing the bhp envelope to the orbit planning a 1600 bhp (phew!) version of the Veyron- are just a couple to quote on the insanity factor. Thankfully something like a Porsche 918 Spyder grants a certain degree of relief when it comes to drinking habits by running a hybrid setup.
Now Audi doesn’t wish to stick to the rear view mirrors of such cars and are planning to come out with their own supercar. The R8 has been around for some time and Audi’s earlier plans to carry forward the R8 with a zero emission R8 e-tron seems to have lost the plot at the moment. However the Ingolstadt based German manufacturer plans to ready a street legal LeMans based supercar by the year 2017. Codenamed as the R20 project, it’s rumoured to be propelled by a twin turbo V6 hybrid-diesel powertrain pumping out close to 550 horsepower with an addition of another 150 bhp generated by the 2 electric motors at the front wheels (e-Quattro). Utilization of future grade lightweight materials should give this combined 700 bhp car some serious power to weight ratio.
While we’d be driving our fuel efficient small cars by then and restricted to mere spectators to these hot eye-candies, it’ll still be an exhilarating show to see these colossal road going rockets floor the pedal to metal.
Image credits: Automobilemag