What's the news?
On 9th January at the Autosport International show a new lightweight sports car from a new company will be unveiled. Zenos Cars is a partnership founded by two former directors from Caterham Cars and its first product, the E10, is a mid-engined track car. The company name is derived from a combination of 'zen' meaning purity and 'os', which is loosely Latin for 'vertebra'.
Appropriately, given the name, the car uses a backbone chassis based around a single aluminium extrusion. Driver and passenger sit either side of the spine in a carbon composite monocoque made from recycled carbon fibre skin with a thermoplastic core. There is also a safety cell, incorporating twin roll over hoops and side impact protection. The chassis is designed to allow other models to be produced. A roadster and coupé are in the pipeline with the project codes E11 and E12 respectively.
Clothing the chassis is a lightweight body that consists of 18 panels. The quoted weight for the E10 is 650kg and with 200hp from a 2.0-litre turbocharged Ford engine a 0-62mph time of less than five seconds is expected.
Although it is designed primarily as a track car the E10 will be road legal. Production is scheduled to start in late 2014 with customer deliveries due in the first quarter of 2015.
Anything else?
Pricing and more technical details will be released at the Autosport International show, which takes place at the NEC from 9-12 January 2014.
John Lambert - 20 Dec 2013