Prodrive has beaten Porsche and Lamborghini in the race to put an off-road supercar on the street, or perhaps that should be sand. The company’s Hunter “all-terrain adventure vehicle” is based on the Bahrain Raid Xtreme competition car driven by multiple WRC champ Sebastian Loeb in the Dakar Rally, but Prodrive claims the production version is even wilder.
We already know that Porsche and Lamborghini are preparing to drop off-road supercars, but neither the lifted 911 or the Huracan spotted in spy photos has a hope of tackling the kind of ground the Hunter can handle. Built around a high tensile steel space frame chassis and featuring double wishbone suspension and twin adjustable dampers at each corner, the Hunter offers 15.8-in (400 mm) of wheel travel, an increase of 2.0-in (50 mm) over the competition car that came second to Toyota in this year’s Dakar rally.
Power output is also superior on the production car because it doesn’t have to be artificially restricted to comply with racing regulations. The customer-spec Hunter’s 3.5-liter twin-turbo V6 delivers 600 hp (608 PS), an increase of 50 percent, plus 516 lb-ft (700 Nm) of torque. That’s sent to the huge 35-inch off-road tires via a six-speed paddle-shift transmission that replaces the six-speed sequential manual fitted to Loeb’s ride.
Prodrive reckons the Hunter should be good for zero to 62 mph (100 km/h) in less than four seconds and will keep on trucking until it’s knocking on the door of 186 mph (300 km/h), but stresses that the whole car has been optimized for off-highway situations to give owners a taste of what it’s like to drive Loeb’s Dakar racer, but with some of the comforts of a road car.
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“There are numerous hypercars on the market, however they all need good roads or even race tracks to show their performance,” said Prodrive Chairman, and former rally co-driver ace, David Richards.
“We identified that in certain parts of the world, particularly the Middle East, there are vast expanses still to be explored that go way beyond the access provided by asphalt roads. Therefore why not create a vehicle that gives the opportunity to explore these regions with performance way beyond that offered by any off-road vehicle before.”
Former Jaguar designer Ian Callum penned the original rally version and returned to make some tweaks to the look of the composite bodywork, while inside, drivers get a digital display and a conventional center console housing typical road car controls. Just don’t expect Rolls Royce comforts, though a Rolls Royce-grade bank balance might be useful if you want to add one to your garage: the Hunter costs £1.25 million ($1.65 m at current exchange rates) plus local taxes.
