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Switzerland, the chocolate loving, clandestine banking, car-hating, not-aligned-to anything or anyone else country of the world has a new supercar, the Weber super sports car.
Founded in 1990, by Swiss businessman Roman Weber, the company resides in Tobel, within the German speaking Swiss canton of Thurgau.
A toolmaker by trade, Weber made his name as a specialist manufacturer of orthopaedic instruments, working with titanium especially. By 2003 Weber had the idea of developing a Swiss supercar and began tinkering with components by the end 2003.
Hand made quality
The first Weber super sports concept car was unveiled at the Monaco Top Marques Expo in May of 2007.
Employing traditional tubular frame chassis construction, the entire Weber chassis weighs only 65kg. A key ingredient of low weight is the use of aerospace grade aluminium throughout.
Although the styling, especially the peculiarly finished front section, might irk design purists, it ensures a high degree aerodynamic efficiency, key in chasing the 400km/h top speed target. The body itself is carbon-fibre, thereby adding as little weight as possible whilst still ensuring requisite strength.
Suspension, as with the chassis and body, is constructed onsite by Weber's craftsman, and consists of upper and lower A-arms suspended by struts. Brakes are huge 380 x 34 mm ceramic brake discs front and rear clamped by Weber built 12-piston callipers; the entire braking system is ABS enabled.
Old-school V8 power
Beyond the typically Swiss engineering quality and self-sufficiency in chassis, bodywork and braking component the power train was always going to need epic power to dispute the 400km/h barrier.
Using the LS7 Corvette sourced small-block 7-litre, V8 engine, Weber The lightweight aluminium block was upgraded with high-performance parts such as a precision-balanced crankshaft, precision-balanced piston rods and forged pistons, a camshaft with sharper timing, and two cylinder heads with larger valves and intake and outlet ports tuned for optimal mixture flow are added.
Engine peripherals were also modified extensively. They now include a custom-developed high-performance fuel injection system and an also custom-developed supercharging system with one mechanical belt-driven supercharger per bank of cylinders.
The stainless-steel exhaust system features metal catalysts with low back pressure as well as a muffler bypass valve for an impressive acoustic experience. With such a large swept capacity and forced induction power output is epic with 662kW at 7 000r/min, and 1050Nm at 3 800r/min.
All-wheel drive, epic pace
Driving all four-wheels through a Weber developed semi-automatic, sequential six-speed paddle-shift gearbox, the 0-100km/h sprint time is claimed to be 2.5 seconds, while the 0-300km/h run is claimed to pass in just 16.2 seconds. Top speed is geared at 400km/h.
The cockpit features an integrated safety cell and houses two carbon-fibre, leather clad sports seats as well as controls for the traction control, engine mapping, GPS navigation and a rear-view camera for parallel parking.
