YKYWT... Make A Small Fortune In The Car Business

Yep, then start with a big one. (But at least you can have fun trying!)

By Silversixx / Tuesday, 12 July 2011 / Loading comments

If you think that

looks a bit like the

then you'd be right, but if you think the makers of this car copied the P2 you'd be wrong. This car is, if you like, a 're-bodied' Mitsubishi Evo VI whereas the P2 was Impreza-based. And while the P2 was unveiled in 2006, this car was finished a couple of years earlier...

Stourbridge concern Xtreme began building this car in 2003 from a carbon composite tub and nailed on all the Evo VI running gear (all-told it weighs just 1100 kilos). It was developed by renowned former Ralliart Technical Director and WRC Team Manager Toney Cox, who decided to replace the Mitsubishi Active Yaw Control with a Limited Slip Differential - a set-up supposedly preferred by the purists.

The car was completed with glass fibre panels and registered as a 'Mitsubishi X1 Prototype', after which it went out with just a standard-tune (300bhp) Evo VI engine and proved to be very, very fast. Xtreme looked for investment to allow them to produce the X1 - and attracted interest from both Russia and India - but it all came to nought in the end.

Having moved premises, Xtreme says the X1 and all of the moulds required to build other X1s are now available for sale, unless of course you'd rather use the car in competition in some way. Anyone who wanted to produce these would need to secure some premises, staff, a truck-load of backing, and then a supply of Evo VIs - many of which will have been pranged once or twice over the years whereas all the greasy bits required for the X1 will still be in rude health. Xtreme would also be on hand to offer any assistance they can.

Frankly I have no idea how you'd go about pricing this car and its associated package of moulds and advice, but the claim that they have sunk £300,000 in it so far is entirely plausible. The British independent car manufacturing industry is a fickle mistress though, with a long list of glorious and not-so-glorious failures...

Prodrive reckoned that the P2 would have retailed at about £40,000 - which some think was a bit optimistic - but either way you have to wonder why they didn't put the car into production.

Perhaps the best way to go would be to complete the development of the X1, proclaim its dazzling 'Ring lap times, and take it from there. Then again, if it was that easy everyone would be doing it...