Red Bull Advanced Technologies (RBAT) is in the advanced stages of developing a mild-hybrid 1250bhp V8 hypercar due for delivery in 2025, as detailed to Autocar by Christian Horner, CEO of Red Bull Racing and its Advanced Technologies offshoot.
The car has been designed with a minimum of compromises and is aimed primarily at track-day applications, but Horner said the closed-roof vehicle – rendered here by Autocar using a silhouette sketch supplied by the firm – could be made road legal should owners wish to convert them to meet local traffic regulations.
A limited production run of 50 units, built at the rate of 15 per year, is planned. Most of them are already spoken for.
Horner described the vehicle as “Adrian Newey unleashed”, adding that the Formula 1 superstar designer had long wished to build a car unfettered by sporting regulations or road car legislation, hence RBAT’s latest in-house project, initially codenamed ‘Eta’.
The car is formally known as RB17 – a tag that fills a gap in Red Bull’s F1 car naming strategy after that number was skipped due to changes to regulations under Covid, with RB16B, which Max Verstappen drove to last year’s drivers’ title, an evolution of the 2020 car, and RB18 this season’s car.
The RB17 is a natural progression from the Newey-designed road-going Aston Martin Valkyrie, currently in the early stages of delivery to customers after a lengthy gestation.
Asked how the RB17 came about, Horner told Autocar: “Adrian wanted to do a car [for us] back in 2014, and at that point in time, we found a route through that by doing all the design work for the Valkyrie in partnership with Aston Martin.
“Valkyrie is a stunning vehicle and I’m sure it will be a great success, but you’re always learning, whether in Formula 1 or on the advanced technologies side.
Join the debate
Add your comment
It's going to be amazing but it's also going to arrive after the current economic boom, in a saturated hypecar market. Hope it doesn't tank.
I seem to remember that Gordon Murray was designing a people car, a car for the masses, a city runabout, what did he do?, yep, he built a Hypercar!
I would have found this news very exciting had I not watched the McMurtry fly up the hill at Goodwood on Sunday... all of a sudden has made traditional hypercars seem rather mundane.
Was that not incredible? It's a Batmobile!