Reynard returns with crazy club racer

Street legal race cars are a dime a dozen these days with companies all around the world pumping out lightweight track day specials. Caterham, Ariel, Radical and even the locally made Elfin all provide big thrills at relatively small dollars.

With so many options to choose from it takes something special to stand out in the crowd. Thankfully for Adrian Reynard, creator of the new Reynard Inverter, he has quite a reputation behind him.

His company, Reynard Motorsport, was once the biggest manufacturer of race cars in the world. It designed race winning cars for series around the world including Champ Car, Formula 3000, Formula Three, Touring Cars and Le Mans prototypes. He was also one of the driving forces behind the creation of the BAR Formula One team before Reynard Motorsport was hit by financial trouble and was declared bankrupt in 2002.

Now after a six year break Adrian Reynard is back with the Inverter; so named because it is theoretically capable of running upside down at speeds of 100mph (160km/h). Reynard says he designed the car because he wanted to return to racing at a cheaper level.

The Inverter is designed to compete in the 750 Motor Club Bike Sports Championship but remains road legal in Europe; a first for Reynard. It will be available in both turnkey and kit form in keeping with most of its rivals.

"I thought it would be really good to design a car again and I wanted to make something for the bottom of the motorsport ladder," Reynard said at the launch of the car at the Autosport International Show this week. "I wanted to build something that could give a unique driving experience at low cost."

The Inverter is designed to weigh only 475kg with driver and Reynard has achieved that by extensive use of carbonfibre bodywork over a steel frame. Reynard and his partner Andre Brown were able to make use of their industry contacts to get the car plenty of wind tunnel time to fine tune the aerodynamics.

Reynard claims the car can provide Formula One levels of downforce thanks to its huge wings front and rear, and the Avon-sourced tyres that are capable of supporting 4G of lateral grip.

Power comes from a variety of motorcycle engines. The show car is powered by a Honda Fireblade 998cc engine but the car is also capable of taking a Suzuki Hayabusa unit. Both are mated to a six-speed sequential gearbox with paddle-shifts.

Combined with the car’s low weight the Inverter produces the incredible figures of 360hp/tonne with the Honda engine and a staggering 560hp/tonne with the Suzuki. It can also be fitted with certain car engines but that requires modification to the rear framework.

Reynard conceived the car in 2007 after spending a year building and racing a Caterham Super Seven in British track days and club events. Construction of the prototype began 12 months ago culminating with its public launch this week.

Reynard has yet to release any further performance details or pricing and sales targets. But it’s a fair bet that the brains trusts at Caterham, Radical and co. are sleeping less easy these days.