Testing, testing

“Beyond 600bhp, I’d take 200kg less over 200bhp more”

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Last week I put the new Lamborghini Temerario on the weighbridge at MIRA. It had the Alleggerita pack fitted, which for a trifling £37k saves you about the mass of a small Labrador. Up popped the numbers, one for each corner. I always double-check these green digits as they go in my notebook but this time was compelled to triple-check. At the facility that houses the weighbridge works an engineer with whom I play guess the weight for every test car. We squinted at the numbers solemnly. Both of us were frankly miles off, more on which in a moment. In the meantime, have a punt yourself.

So how much should a supercar weigh? As little as possible, but we ought to recognise that today’s mainstream manufacturers, forced into hybridisation and penned in by lots of other homologation guard rails besides, can’t easily go below 1400kg. I'd therefore say a supercar with the contact patch and engine required to cut it performance-wise in the modern era, along with the cockpit conveniences and safety apparatus we now expect, should be no more than 1550kg-ish fuelled. That's a fair threshold in an era when we have all but unfettered access to carbon this, Inconel that and very advanced metallurgy.