Brabham BT62 revealed

The much-hyped Brabham BT62 has finally broken cover in London – and with it the biggest surprise of the motoring year. The $1.82 million-plus supercar will be built in Adelaide, less than a kilometre from the recently closed Holden factory.

The BT62 is a limited edition coupe for track use only, but will be followed by other models according to David Brabham.

The youngest son of triple world champion Sir Jack, David is the managing director of the new Brabham Automotive company and told drive.com.au “We obviously have aspirations for a road car, and obviously a motor sport program.

“The whole architecture of the vehicle has been shaped quite a bit around endurance racing, so Le Mans, the World Endurance Championship is the goal, though [that] will be the next variant.”

With carbon-fibre bodywork and carbon-on-carbon brake rotors, the dry weight of the new compact two-seater is 972 kg. A mid-mounted naturally-aspirated V8 sends power solely to the rear wheels. Producing 522 kW (or 700 bhp) and 667 Nm, this 5.4-litre unit is a heavily modified version of an unnamed OEM powerplant and is badged Brabham in agreement with the supplier.

So what is the new car like to drive? We have to take it on faith from the managing director, though he has won Le Mans and raced in F1.

“Fantastic,” says Brabham. “I’ve driven a lot of vehicles over 35 years of racing. When I did the brief of what this car needs to be like, it’s the car I’d like to drive on track.

“That is to say it has to be faster than the current breed of GT race cars, so in between a GT car and a prototype [ie a Le Mans outright contender]. It is a car that has a wide grip band so when you drive it you feel confident and it manoeuvres around corners like I would like it to. I’m very happy with the balance and direction.”

The BT62 continues the naming convention started when Jack Brabham and Australian engineer Ron Tauranac teamed up to build racing cars in the early 1960s, with a letter for each of their surnames followed by the model number. Brabham and Tauranac built over 500 racing cars together, winning the 1966 and 1967 F1 Championships and much else.

The London launch took place Wednesday night at Australia House, with a selection of historic Brabham racing cars and a BT62 finished in the green and gold livery of Sir Jack’s world championship winning BT19 from 1966.

The first 35 of the planned 70 cars to be built will be “celebration models” and finished in the liveries of the cars that took the Brabham F1 team’s 35 F1 victories before it closed in 1992. The production total honours 70 years since Sir Jack commenced his racing career.

The order book is open and David Brabham says inquiries have come from around the world. The BT62 is not a prototype; it has been developed in secret over the past 30 months says the company, which plans to deliver the first cars before the end of this year.

The starting price (officially £1 million plus options and applicable taxes) includes a driver development programme, where the owner will be trained to get the most out of a car shod with slick tyres, and with an aerodynamic package delivering over 1200 kg of downforce.

The vast majority of sports car projects fail. Why, we asked David, will this one buck that trend?

“If you look at the brand, if you look at the way the market is going for these types of vehicles, the timing just seems to be right on point," he said.

"We have a really good group of people, very good on the business structure and with expertise of advance manufacturing and so forth. We just feel that everything has come together at the right time for all of us to take a product like this to market and to grow the automotive group into the future.”