Honda confirms Project 2 & 4 will get MotoGP engine

Honda has confirmed its concept of a hard-core rival to the Caterham 7 will come with a race-bred 1000cc V4 lifted straight from a MotoGP motorcycle racer.

The Japanese car-maker hasn’t said how much power the Project 2 & 4’s 1.0-litre motorcycle engine will produce but in race-spec, the V4 (codename RC213V) produces at least 175kW.

For road use, the Project 2 & 4 is expected to be detuned and produce around 165kW with a lift in torque over the racer.

There’s also a question mark over what transmission the Project concept will use with some reports suggesting that instead of car’s manual gearbox it will use a motorcycle’s seamless shift transmission with a reverse gear powered by the starter motor.

In any case, the Project 2 & 4 is shaping up to be one of the stars of the Frankfurt show and will easily live up to its brief to “create a more exciting user experience” and to provide “the freedom of a motorcycle and the manoeuvrability of a car”.

So far, Honda has only released a single bird’s-eye view image that appears to show an innovative single-seat sports car that sits driver side-by-side with the engine. If so, Australian Honda enthusiasts have already expressed concerns because the left-hand drive would render any production version of the concept a pricey track day plaything.

Other details revealed by the image released include a centrally mounted air-intake and faired wheel-arches. Reinforcing its extreme single-seat nature is the concept's 1960s Honda Formula 1 race livery.

More information is expected to be teased on the Project 2 & 4 in the coming days. The concept came about after the Japanese car-maker’s engineers decided to collaborate with their two-wheeled colleagues.