If traditional heavy-duty SUVs aren’t quite dramatic enough for you, a newly unveiled vehicle that significantly ups the ante in the off-road stakes may be more up your street. Or, indeed, whatever surface you choose to drive it on.
British manufacturer Prodrive has revealed the Hunter, a road-going version of a contender the company built for the Dakar Rally that it claims will be the world’s first all-terrain hypercar.
The new arrival is, of course, a four-wheel drive affair, with power coming from a 3.5-litre V6-turbo engine that produces 600 brake horsepower and 700Nm of torque.
Initial estimates as to what the Hunter can do are impressive — the road-going version will reportedly have a 0-100 kilometres per hour time of less than four seconds and a top speed of 300kph. Take that, tarmac and dunes.
The vehicle the Hunter is based on is one Prodrive produced for the Bahrain Raid Xtreme event, which is part of the Dakar Rally. As the production model doesn’t have to comply with competition regulations though, the manufacturer has managed to squeeze an extra 50 per cent of oomph out of the engine.
Company chairman David Richards said the new arrival's ability to go anywhere was key to its appeal.
“There are numerous hypercars on the market, however they all need good roads or even race tracks to show their performance,” he said.
“We identified that in certain parts of the world, particularly the Middle East, there are vast expanses still to be explored that go way beyond the access provided by asphalt roads.
“Therefore, why not create a vehicle that gives the opportunity to explore these regions with performance way beyond that offered by any off-road vehicle before?”
A development version of the Hunter is currently touring the Middle East, and prospective customers are being offered the chance to drive it and consider what personal specifications they might fancy.
The Prodrive Hunter will cost £1.25 million plus local taxes (Dh6.25m), so we might not all be driving one, but the first customers will receive their vehicles later in 2022.
