Fernandez
Gold Member
Just been reading up abut this little.. ermmmmm cant really say beauty as its quite visually challenging, but it has got a Meg lump in it so all is good and I bet it flies.
Ermini Seiottosei
I'll say it again: Lightness is Rightness. This is a sentiment that our third turbocharged Italian very much symbolises, seeing as it has no side windows or roof, let alone anything else. This is the tongue-twisting Seiottosei, a car that brings back an old Italian sports and racing car manufacturer from the 1940s and '50s called Ermini. According to the people bringing it back, "between 1946 and 1955, Ermini built and powered around 40 automobiles, all sports cars that rivalled the likes of Osca and Cisitalia, the more high-profile and powerful Ferrari, Maserati, Porsche and Mercedes models, sometimes, quite incredibly, even managing to beat them." So now you know.
Looking like an Italian take on the Tommy-Kaira ZZ-S, the Seiottosei (I'm guessing it's pronounced "say-otto-say") features a tube-frame chassis coated in carbon fibre and aluminium bodywork, two very skinny bucket seats clothed in brown alcantara, an LCD display and that's about it. The result of all this minimalism is a kerbweight so low it makes even the Abarth Biposto look lardy and dumpy. In fact, even the carbon-tubbed Alfa 4C can't hold a candle to the Ermini's commitment to lightness, as the Seiottosei weighs in at just 686kg, or 1512lbs if you're an imperial sort. A Lotus Elise weighs just under 900kg, to add more perspective, and a regular family car is probably 1300-1800kg. Anything under 1000kg can be considered a true lightweight, but when it's much closer to half a tonne, it's a proper hardcore machine. But a car that light will only have about 200 horsepower, right? Wrong. This car uses the 2.0 turbo engine from the current Renaultsport Megane, an engine that is rather amusingly called "F4RT RS." This particular F4RT has been heated up to increase its strength, meaning it emits 320PS (316bhp). That makes for a 0-60 time of 3.5 seconds and a power/weight ratio of 461bhp/tonne, which I think you'll find is knocking on the door of some very serious supercars. Sure, it won't do 230mph - would you want to in something so open? - but around a track this could be a total giant slayer!
This weekend toy can line up alongside the KTM X-Bow, Caterham Superlight and Ariel Atom as a hardcore adrenaline pump... if it turns out to be any good. Ermini haven't mentioned anything about production plans at this time, so we'll just have to wait and see...
