About a month ago Radford unveiled its stunning 62-2 sports car, a modern revamp of the Lotus 62 race car with modern materials and modern running gear. The company already showed off the Classic and Gold Leaf variants of the car. On Wednesday it finally took the wraps off of the track-focused John Player Special edition. This model features a 600-horsepower supercharged Toyota-sourced V6, dual-clutch transmission, full downforce aero kit, carbon fiber Dymag wheels, and carbon ceramic brakes. It’s properly bonkers.
The engine is a 3.5-liter 2GR-FE based Toyota V6, the same one Lotus uses for its various Evora and Exige models. In stock naturally-aspirated form the engine makes around 300 horsepower, but Radford and Lotus have kicked that up a few notches with some serious modifications. First, obviously, there is a supercharger. Inside the engine, however, the Radford gets special pistons, connecting rods, and camshafts. To control it all, the company tuned the engine with some seriously aggressive calibration. It’s rowdy and ready for a really fast and fun track day.
In comparison to the other less hardcore versions of the Type 62-2 the JPS model has some wild bodywork upgrades to keep the car planted on track. At the front there is a massive splitter, along the sides the car features bigger air inlets to help that supercharged lump gulp down oxygen, and out back there’s a diffuser as deep as the oceans. While it probably won’t be pulling proper race car lap times without a separate rear wing, the Type 62-2 JPS is probably a good bit faster than you can wring out of it anyway. And at the end of the day, that’s what matters.
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This version of the car is alleged to drop under 2200 pounds, which puts its power to weight ratio around 3.66 pounds per horsepower. That rate is slightly better than a 1997 McLaren F1, so, you know, it’s probably good. I mean, sure, it’s not a BMW V12, and it hasn’t won Le Mans, but this thing is guaranteed to be measurably better in every metric than the F1 ever was. I think I know which one I’d rather have. Especially because the Radford surely won’t cost eight figures. There’s no word on what it will cost, but I’d bet orders of magnitude less than a McLaren. Only 12 of these hand-painted JPS liveried machines, so it’s rarer than the Macca, too!
