The Ascari A10 is a prototype automobile produced by the British company

Ascari Cars Ascari Cars Ltd. was a British automobile manufacturer based in Banbury, England, and founded by Klaas Zwart. Zwart was the former chairman and majority owner of oil and gas company Petroline, which designed and manufactured its own downhole ...

that was conceived by

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

millionaire Klaas Zwart. It is a road-going evolution of the KZ1-R GT race car that participated in the

Spanish GT Championship The Spanish GT Championship / Iber GT (''Campeonato de España de GT / Iber GT'') was a Spanish auto racing series founded in 1999 and organised by the GT Sport Organización. The series runs multiple classes of grand tourer cars in events aroun ...

, with both cars penned by Paul Brown, former designer for the

Zakspeed Zakspeed () is a motor racing team from Germany, founded in 1968 by Erich Zakowski and after that run by his son Peter Zakowski. It is based in Niederzissen, Rhineland-Palatinate, around from the Nürburgring circuit. 1973 to 1981: Saloon and s ...

F1 team. It was intended to be the third road car produced by the company, after the Ecosse and the KZ1, with the name A10 intended to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the company, but it did not reach production despite a planned fifty cars.

Specifications

The A10 features a modified BMW S62

V8 engine A V8 engine is an eight-cylinder piston engine in which two banks of four cylinders share a common crankshaft and are arranged in a V configuration. The first V8 engine was produced by the French Antoinette company in 1904, developed and us ...

producing , delivered via a six-speed

sequential manual gearbox A sequential manual transmission, also known as a sequential gearbox, or a sequential transmission, is a type of non-synchronous manual transmission used mostly for motorcycles and racing cars. It produces faster shift time Shift time refers ...

, with a regular manual transmission available as an option. The A10 shares the same basic carbon fibre chassis as the KZ1, with all-new bodywork and racing-derived suspension. Despite the addition of an FIA-spec

roll cage A roll cage is a specially engineered and constructed frame built in (or sometimes around, in which case it is known as an exo cage) the passenger compartment of a vehicle to protect its occupants from being injured or killed in an accident, pa ...

and the

fire suppression system Fire suppression systems are used to extinguish, control, or in some cases, entirely prevent fires from spreading or occurring. Fire suppression systems have an incredibly large variety of applications, and as such, there are many different types ...

, the removal of soundproofing, air conditioning, and stereo system contributed to the A10's relatively light weight of .

Other Media

On 9 December 2007, the Ascari A10 was featured in the UK show ''

Top Gear Top Gear may refer to: * "Top gear", the highest gear available in a vehicle's manual transmission Television * ''Top Gear'' (1977 TV series), a British motoring magazine programme * ''Top Gear'' (2002 TV series), a relaunched version of the or ...

'' and driven around the track by

The Stig The Stig is a character from the British motoring television show ''Top Gear''. Created by former ''Top Gear'' presenter Jeremy Clarkson and producer Andy Wilman, the character is a play on the anonymity of racing drivers' full-face helmets, wit ...

in 1:17.3. This made it the fastest car at the time, and, as of 2015, the

ninth In music, a ninth is a compound interval consisting of an octave plus a second. Like the second, the interval of a ninth is classified as a dissonance in common practice tonality. Since a ninth is an octave larger than a second, its ...

fastest.

References

* A10 Sports cars Rear mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive vehicles Cars introduced in 2007 {{modern-auto-stub