Gabura Racing Technologies (GRT) has recently revealed its new project to redevelop a BMW i8 to feature a 4.4 litre V8 engine. This was revealed at the 2015 Professional MotorSport World Expo (PMW) in Cologne.
Having seen a fair share of aftermarket tuners producing their own unique versions of the BMW i8, none of them have ever dabbled with the sports car’s hybrid powertrain before. As standard, the BMW i8 features a 231 hp 1.5 litre TwinPower three-cylinder engine and a 131 hp electric motor. Its total system output is rated at 362 hp and 570 Nm of torque.
The regular i8’s figures aren’t bad at all, so good in fact that the sports car manages to perform its century sprint in just 4.4 seconds. However, the team at GRT isn’t known to be satisfied easily.
The German tuner has announced that it will be removing the hybrid powertrain entirely and retrofitting its version of the i8 with a 4.4 litre TwinPower V8 engine sourced from the BMW M5 and M6. The engine is mounted up front where the electric motor used to be, paired with a new six-speed sequential transmission.
But rather than leave things at that, the GRT powertrain will feature a tune-up by Alpina, adding an extra 200 hp. Do the math, and it all adds up to this i8 featuring nearly 800 hp! Unfortunately, no further performance details were mentioned.
As posted on its Facebook page, the GRT team said, “We have revealed our secret that GRT’s supercar is based on the high-tech and futuristic BMW i8. The great challenge of the project is to switch the hybrid driveline to pure racing technology.”
It continues, “At the PMW Expo, the team of Gabura Racing Technologies gave visitors an inside view of the development process, everybody can check out the current state of the project. As we expected, there is enormous interest in GRT’s supercar, so we are proud to say that the show is a great success for us.”
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Love it or loath it, the world is never short of creative people.
Yeah. I’ve learned not to put ideas down so quick. Never underestimate what creative people can achieve even if their ideas seem stupid sometimes.
Looks like the show girls are also equipped with TwinPower Turbo, if you know what I mean. Or in this case, more appropriately called TwinPeaks Turbo..