Supercars are very much in vogue around the globe – even the Australians want to build a 300 km/h-plus road machine! And here is the fruit of Aussie Matthew Thomas’ efforts: Joss.
Supercars are very much in vogue around the globe – even the Australians want to build a 300 km/h-plus road machine! And here is the fruit of Aussie Matthew Thomas’ efforts: Joss.
Joss has been heavily influenced by the McLaren F1 and the Ferrari F40 and he reckons it can compete with the likes of the traditional supercars. Thomas worked for the Stewart F1 team and is currently a modeller for Ford Australia.
He said: "We have made it as aerodynamic as possible, but wanted it to look like a traditional supercar so that it will appeal to a wide range of people."
In this, the "super car decade" Thomas said "it’s very much a race between all of the companies at the moment to get the ultimate car by the end of the decade, and we’ve sort of come in half way through the chase, but we’ve sort of got to work twice as hard to overtake them, but I think market sales show there is more than enough room in the market for super cars and it’s looking very optimistic at the moment."
The test car, fitted with a smaller 6,1-litre V8 engine sprinted from zero to 100 km/h in 3,7 seconds.
In its final guise, the Joss will be fitted with a 6,6-litre all-aluminium V8 engine with a limited slip differential and a six-speed Porsche transaxle, as opposed to the five-speed transmission used in the test version. The final car will also use carbon fibre for the chassis and body to make it up to 40 kg lighter than the car tested.
A new suspension set-up and launch system is being designed to maximise starts from stationary and Thomas estimates the production car will cover the zero to 100 km standard in a spectacular 2,5 seconds and reach a top speed of more than 300 km/h.
