When you’ve got billions of dollars to throw around on a whim your bar bets will be slightly more extravagant than your average Joe. According to Road and Track on their latest update on the Devel Sixteen from earlier yesterday (Nov 8, 2017) the Devel Sixteen’s management team has commissioned a designer as well as a debut date at the 2017 Dubai Motor Show. Check out a couple of press photos of this hypercar that promises to eclipse 300 MPH below.

Devel Sixteen
Devel Sixteen

When video surfaced two years ago of the Devel Sixteen’s engine making 4,000 HP on an engine dyno, this project got a lot of attention. Today, when you mention hypercar, the power numbers usually hover around 1,000 HP. To promise five times that is both questionable and laudable. Earlier this week Devel partnered with Manifattura Automobili Torino, or MAT for short, to design and fabricate the body and presumably iron out all the details to mate a 5,000 HP engine to a carbon fiber body.

The story about how the financial backers approached the engine builders is noteworthy. Only two parameters were specified, that the engine has four turbos and that the configuration is V16. Combining their knowledge of GM LS powered engines and Chevy platforms in general, the similarities to a Chevy Small block can be drawn to this motor. But don’t be fooled, the Devel Sixteen’s engine shares little with the LS series. The crankshaft, engine block, and intake plenum being the biggest differences. You can read more about what’s different on this motor here. 

Some astute commenters on a Reddit thread addressing this car brought up the challenge of cooling. An engine that makes this much power won’t be easy to cool. Obviously, a lot of a combustion engine’s energy is dissipated as heat. Typically, an engine this size would be at home on a boat. Speedboats typically channel the lake’s water through the engine’s cooling channels as a means to cool their engines. That cooling strategy won’t work on road going cars.

The Dubai Motor Show is literally a week away with doors opening on Nov. 14 and rumor is that the Devel Sixteen will make an appearance. It seems farfetched that Devel will pull off an appearance in such short amount of time. But Dubai is Dubai and it’s a land of extremes. We wouldn’t be surprised if it did show up.

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