Whether you’re talking muscle cars like the Dodge Demon, or hypercars like the Bugatti Chiron, somebody always thinks there needs to be a bit more power. But if the promise being made by a Dubai-based automotive start-up holds true, we just might be hitting the performance wall.
Set to debut at the Dubai Motor show next week, the Devel Sixteen is said to make an eye-popping 5,000 horsepower from its quad-turbo V-16 engine, enough to propel it to a top speed of 310 miles per hour. To put that into perspective, that’s more than triple what the Chion and the Hennessey Venom F5 can manage.
There’ve been plenty of rumors about what Devel might have in store since a prototype was first introduced back in 2013. It even released video two years ago showing the engine undergoing testing and reaching a full 4,515 hp on the dyno – with developers noting that they had yet to bring those four turbos up to full boost.
It wasn’t all that long ago when 400 horsepower seemed a preposterous figure. Now, even relatively high-volume cars, such as the Dodge Hellcat models, are pumping out over 700 hp, and the limited-edition Dodge Challenger SRT Demon is pushing that to 840. On the exotic side, the Bugatti Veyron was the first to push into 1,000 hp territory and the new Chiron takes that to 1,479. Hennessey, which has been in a race to claim the “world’s fastest” crown, nudges that to more than 1,600 with the new Venom F5 that debuted at SEMA a week ago.
(Click Here to check out the Hennessey Venom F5.)
While founder John Hennessey declared his intent was to come up with a car so “timeless…that in 25 years it will still have a level of performance and design that will be unmatched.” Styling is a matter of personal taste, but it appears Devel could soon take the sting out of Hennessey’s Venom.
The 12.4-liter quad-turbo V-16 has been developed by Steve Morris Engines, a small, Detroit-based development house that bills itself as a “leader” in “custom high-performance engines. A search of its website reveals it is already offering custom racing and dragstrip packages that it rates at as much as “4000+ hp.”
The Sixteen will push things a big step further, with what Devel declared to be “the power of ten supercars.” And it will be able to deliver that sort of power, it appears, without needing to be rebuilt after every couple of races.
SME has estimated its engine package could launch the Devel Sixteen from 0 to 100 kmh, or 62.5 mph, in a mere 1.8 seconds and hit a top speed of 348 mph. The Dubai start-up seems to be taken an uncharacteristically modest position, downplaying the limit to a mere 310 mph.
(Mercedes gets into the 1,000 hp range. Click Here to check out the new Project One hypercar.)
Despite the shock that sort of acceleration would deliver, Devel promises that the Sixteen will be “an easy daily driver with all the refinements expected in this kind of vehicle.”
Ahead of the official debut of the Sixteen in Dubai on November 14th, Devel has revealed it will work with the Italian motorsports and limited-production manufacturing team at Manifattura Automobili Torino to actually build the new hypercar. MAT has already taken on several other hyper-exotics, including the Glickenhaus SCG 003.
We’ll hope to hear a lot more about the Devel Sixteen at the Dubai Motor Show, including details on the suspensions system and what is all but certainly a carbon fiber body and monocoque. Another big question: what will it cost? The engine alone reportedly requires months to produce, so we’d be stunned if it doesn’t come in well above the price tag of the Hennessey Venom F5 or the Bugatti Chiron, the latter going for more than $2.6 million.
Incidentally, for those whose budgets are a little more limited, if you can make due with a bit less power – say something north of 800 – the Dubai show is expected to see a wide range of new exotics debut, a list that will also include the long-awaited next-generation Corvette ZR1.
(Click Here for more on the 1,000+ hp F1-based Aston Martin Valkyrie.)
Every square inch of the car would need to be a radiator.