Touted as the world’s most exciting driver’s car, the new Caparo T1 is on display at the ongoing Auto Expo in New Delhi months before its commercial UK launch in April. The T1 is manufactured by the Caparo Group founded by NRI businessman Lord Swaraj Paul – and designed by senior engineers from the team that developed the legendary McLaren F1. The T1 uses a blend of race-car and road-car technologies to deliver mind numbing performance that surpasses all road legal super cars on sale anywhere in the world. The T1 is a two seater and has an aluminium V8 engine which produced 480 bhp @ 10500 rpm. The car weighs less than 500 kg giving it a power-weight ratio of 1,000bhp per tonne, around twice that of a Bugatti Veyron. This gives the T1’s radical acceleration and braking performance never before experienced in a road legal car. 0 to 100kmph is dispatched in just 2.5 seconds and zero to 160kmph in less than five seconds. Top speed exceeds 320kmph and the vehicle’s ‘Caparo AP’ braking technology generates more than 3g of retardation, allowing it to stop from 160kmph in less than three seconds.

“Whilst the T1 is intended primarily for the track, it has two seats and can also be registered for road use, making it the highest performance road car ever by a significant margin,” says Caparo Group CEO, Angad Paul. Critics have highlighted safety concerns with the T1 but Caparo officials claim that it is also one of the safest cars on the road, with an energy absorbing nose, tail and side structures and an exceptionally strong protective passenger cell constructed using carbon composite forming technology. The Caparo T1 is now undergoing final development testing before the first production cars are hand assembled at a dedicated facility in the UK. Global sales for Caparo Group reached US$1.5 billion in 2006 and are expected to reach US$ 2 billion by 2010.

“The growth is going to come primarily from India where the company’s automotive business, Caparo Vehicle Products, is a key vendor to many manufacturers supplying light-weight metal products (including stamping, forging, machining and aluminium castings), fasteners, high-precision tubing, braking systems etc. The group is investing heavily in India in an effort to become the number one technology supplier to the Indian automotive industry by 2009” says Mr. Sanjay Bhagat, Director Marketing, Caparo India. “The objective of showcasing the T1 at the Auto Expo in Delhi is to display our expertise in creating world class component meant for use in racing and road cars” adds Bhagat. There are no plans to launch the T1 in India though.

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