A German company that has been developing lightweight products for race and road cars for nearly 100 years is branching out. The Capricorn Group’s products have hit the street and circuit wearing badges from Lamborghini, Nismo, BMW M, Bugatti, and more. Now its own name will be front and center, on a brand-new analog hypercar with a body from Zagato. It’s called the Capricorn 01 Zagato, and it promises nearly 900 horsepower, an LMP-style chassis, and a…five-speed manual transmission?
Some of Capricorn’s work includes building the Porsche 919 Le Mans winner, and it takes credit for 14 wins at the track and 18 F1 titles. “The Capricorn 01 Zagato represents the culmination of everything we have learnt from decades of pioneering ultra-lightweight materials, technologies and construction techniques,” says CEO Robertino Wild. “This car is a showcase of Capricorn’s comprehensive capabilities. It demonstrates precisely what Capricorn can do when it combines all of its different technologies and skills to engineer, develop, and build an entire car.”
Zagato and Capricorn have worked to make this car generate race car levels of downforce without any wings. Instead, the air flows into the body, using features including styling lines, vents, and even the surfaces of the doors to channel air in ways that reduce drag and press the car to the pavement. The execution is not ostentatious, so the design comes across quite clean. And apparently, it’s quite effective. Wild says downforce levels are “constant and predictable” but not ultra-high. That could make things interesting for the driver.
Capricorn calls the chassis an “LMP1-type” unit, and the whole car weighs less than 2,700 pounds. A fly for a vehicle like this, especially one with a supercharged V8 mounted behind the driver. That engine is a 5.2-liter Ford-sourced V8. It has been massaged beyond anything Ford has done in-house, making more than 900 PS (888 horsepower) and 738 pound-feet of torque. The engine will spin to 9,000 rpm, which might explain how Capricorn hopes to get away with just five forward gears.
The five-speed comes from a company called CIMA. You might not have heard of it, but it makes gearboxes for the likes of Koenigsegg and Pagani. This one is a dogleg box, so first is off on its own, which just adds to the strange charm of this car. This arrangement means the 2-3 and 3-2 shifts are nice and in line, which is far more common during a race than sliding all the way down to first.
We don’t know the ratios of all the gears, but having a car with 900 hp certainly helps taller cogs feel nice and short. And these must be pretty wide indeed, because the Capricorn 01 can stretch its legs all the way to 224 mph.
Carbon brakes from Brembo live under 21-inch wheels the company builds in-house. You can get those wheels in a traditional alloy, or opt for carbon. A double-wishbone pushrod suspension controls it all, and they are handled by Bilstein springs and dampers. The shocks have three driving modes that can be chosen by the driver from the steering wheel. Even the power steering on this car is special, with a small motor for parking maneuvers and no assist at all at speed for a more direct connection and better steering feel.
Capricorn plans to build more of these cars, but not many. There will be 19 Capricorn 01 Zagatos built, a nod to Zagato’s founding in 1919. But Capricorn says it will start building more high-end cars. Up to 200 per year. And it’s open to building its own as well as low-volume contracts for other OEMs and even fully bespoke cars for individual clients.
Source: Capricorn Group, Autocar
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