sports car
A sports car is a car designed with an emphasis on dynamic performance, such as handling, acceleration, top speed, the thrill of driving and racing capability. Sports cars originated in Europe in the early 1900s and are currently produced by ...
built in 1995 by Ramon Jimenez, a French motorcycle racer from
Vaucluse
Vaucluse (; oc, Vauclusa, label= Provençal or ) is a department in the southeastern French region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. It had a population of 561,469 as of 2019. It reportedly cost £600,000 ($855,000) and took ten years to develop. It features an aerodynamic body with center locking wheels,
scissor doors
Scissor doors (also called flap doors, wing doors, beetle-wing doors, turtle doors, switchblade doors, swing-up doors, upswing doors, Lamborghini doors, and Lambo doors) are automobile doors that rotate vertically at a fixed hinge at the front o ...
and
carbon fiber
Carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (American English), carbon-fibre-reinforced polymers (Commonwealth English), carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics, carbon-fiber reinforced-thermoplastic (CFRP, CRP, CFRTP), also known as carbon fiber, carbon compo ...
parts which Jimenez developed himself.
History
Jimenez built the Novia as a tribute to the Porsche 917 race car, starting work in 1985 with the help of a small team of engineers in his workshop in Avignon. France. Before building the car, Jimenez acquired the materials needed to fabricate his own carbon fiber composite panels from scratch. The Novia was finished in 1995 at the cost of . Jimenez continued to test and develop it, planning additional performance upgrades. He hoped to enter the car for the
24 Hours of Le Mans
The 24 Hours of Le Mans (french: link=no, 24 Heures du Mans) is an endurance-focused sports car race held annually near the town of Le Mans, France. It is the world's oldest active endurance racing event. Unlike fixed-distance races whose ...
under the then current GT1 rules, and put the car into serial production with an expected asking price of . However, he wasn't able to as the French government mandated that a separate chassis be made for the purpose of crash testing. It is reported that Jimenez was also working on a possible off road version of the Novia for production at the time.
Performance
The Novia is powered by a mid mounted 4.1L W16 engine that was made by combining four
1.0 liter 4 cylinder motorcycle engines. It has 4 rows of cylinders with 4 cylinders in each row and a total of 80 valves (5 valves per cylinder). It also uses two crankshafts, unlike the W16 found in the
Bugatti Veyron
The Bugatti Veyron EB 16.4 is a mid-engine sports car, designed and developed in Germany by the Volkswagen Group and Bugatti and manufactured in Molsheim, France, by French automobile manufacturer Bugatti. It was named after the racing driver P ...
. Some sources argue however that the layout of the powerplant with four rows of cylinders arranged in two Vs wasn't a true W engine as it didn't fit the "broad arrow" layout of other W engines. The finished engine produces 417.6 kW (567 PS, 560
bhp
BHP Group Limited (formerly known as BHP Billiton) is an Australian multinational mining, metals, natural gas petroleum public company that is headquartered in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
The Broken Hill Proprietary Company was founded ...
) at 10,000
rpm
Revolutions per minute (abbreviated rpm, RPM, rev/min, r/min, or with the notation min−1) is a unit of rotational speed or rotational frequency for rotating machines.
Standards
ISO 80000-3:2019 defines a unit of rotation as the dimensionl ...
and 432 nm (318.6 lb ft of torque), with power sent to the rear wheels through a 6-speed manual transmission. During a speed run on a section of the A7 highway in France that had been closed by local officials, the Novia reached a verified top speed of 380 km/h (236 mph). The car can reportedly accelerate from 0-60 mph (97 km/h) in 3.1 seconds and complete an 1000 meter sprint in 19 seconds. Notably, the Novia was one of the first cars to be powered by a
W16 engine
A W16 engine is a sixteen-cylinder piston engine with four banks of four cylinders in a W configuration.
W16 engines are rarely produced, with the notable exception of the Volkswagen Group 8.0 WR16 engine, which has been used since 2005 in the ...
Porsche 917K
The Porsche 917 is a sports prototype race car developed by German manufacturer Porsche to exploit the regulations regarding the construction of 5-litre sports cars. Powered by a Type 912 flat-12 engine which was progressively enlarged from ...
race car. The interior is accessed via
scissor doors
Scissor doors (also called flap doors, wing doors, beetle-wing doors, turtle doors, switchblade doors, swing-up doors, upswing doors, Lamborghini doors, and Lambo doors) are automobile doors that rotate vertically at a fixed hinge at the front o ...
and features cream-colored Connolly leather, twin bucket seats with racing harnesses, radio/cassette player, ashtray and air conditioning. It also features electronic traction control and adjustable hydraulic suspension.{{clr