Since its foundation in 1984, the British company Prodrive has been dedicated to preparing vehicles for motorsport competition. In your portfolio there legendary cars such as the Porsche 911 SC RS of the Rothmans Porsche team and the Subaru Impreza WRCs that competed in the world rally championship between 1997 and 2005, years in which Prodrive was in charge of the operations of the Subaru workforce in that discipline.
Now this company is trying its luck as a commercial constructor with the presentation of the Hunter, an off-road vehicle suitable for driving on public roads based on its Bahrain Raid Xtreme competition car, current leader in the cross-country rally or rally-raid world championship, with the one that shares engine, transmission, suspension and its impressive exterior design.
The Prodrive Hunter’s unusual aerodynamic bodywork was designed by Ian Callum, Jaguar’s chief designer from 1999 to 2019, who today heads his own consulting firm. Although the exterior did not undergo significant changes in the transformation from the Bahrain Raid Xtreme to the Hunter, its interior was radically modified although without completely losing the flavor of a competition car.
Its two competition seats are equipped with six-point safety harnesses. It also has a center console that the contest model lacks from which the driver faces a group of configurable digital instruments. Prodrive felt it important to equip the Hunter with a dual fire suppression system, which is never a bad idea on a vehicle of these capabilities.
At the heart of this mechanical monster is a front-mounted 3.5-liter twin-turbocharged V6 engine that, unconstrained by world cross-country rally championship rules, makes 591 horsepower and 516 pound-feet of torque. Figures that represent double the power of the Bahrain Raid Xtreme. The engine is mated to a six-speed sequential transmission, in which the race car gear lever is replaced by paddle shifters.
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The Hunter’s double-wishbone suspension has 15.7 inches of travel, an increase of two inches over the Bahrain Raid Xtreme, and ensures a more civilized ride, especially on pavement. The Hunter is equipped with massive 35-inch off-road wheels, which may not help it achieve impressive acceleration figures, but they do ensure that the vehicle’s potential is harnessed in the off-road situations for which it was created.
Prodrive sees the Middle East as the main market for the Hunter, but has also focused its sales efforts on North America, where there are high-speed off-road testing sites. The Hunter starts at £1.25m, about $1.38m at current exchange rates, so the vast majority of its fans will have to settle for less expensive cars like the Land Rover Defender and Mercedes-Benz vans. G-Class. Still, Prodrive says the units already traded, which include those seen in the images accompanying this article, will keep them busy for the rest of 2022.
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