If you’re tired of waiting for the Porsche 911 Safari / Dakar or the Lamborghini Huracan Sterrato, Prodrive will happily redirect you to its very own all-terrain supercar. Meet the Hunter, essentially a road-going version of the BRX Hunter T1+ Dakar Rally car. It largely retains the look of the competition version, but since it doesn’t have to comply with class regulations, it has over 50 percent more power.
Indeed, at the heart of the Hunter is a Ford-supplied 3.5-liter V6 engine tweaked by Prodrive to generate in excess of 600 horsepower and 700 Newton-meters (516 pound-feet) of torque. The potent twin-turbo mill helps the go-anywhere supercar hit 62 mph (100 km/h) from a standstill in less than four seconds. Flat out, it’ll do nearly 186 mph (300 km/h).
Gallery: 2023 Prodrive Hunter
The maximum velocity is downright amazing for a car fitted with massive 35-inch off-road tires primarily intended for rough roads rather than smooth tarmac. However, the top speed might only be possible with street-oriented rubber.
The Prodrive Hunter is a true adventure vehicle courtesy of a double-wishbone suspension front and rear with 400 millimeters (15.7 inches) of travel. Interestingly, that’s actually 50 mm (nearly two inches) more than the Dakar-spec machine.
Prodrive has fitted the Hunter with a six-speed, paddle-shift gearbox routing all that power to a four-wheel-drive system. The outdoorsy beast has front, center, and rear differentials, not to mention adjustable dampers and a giant fuel tank that can hold a whopping 480 liters (127 gallons). It rides on 8.5J x 172 forged alloy wheels with six-piston calipers paired with vented discs part of the race-spec braking system.
As you might have guessed already, the Prodrive Hunter is not exactly cheap. It costs £1.25 million ($1.63M at current exchange rates), and that's before taxes. Production in Banbury, UK will be capped at 25 examples and the first one has already been sold to Bahrain's Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa. Quelle surprise...
Chances are the Lamborghini Huracan Sterrato and Porsche 911 Safari / Dakar will both be substantially cheaper, but we'll see if they'll be able to match the Hunter's all-terrain capabilities. In an interview with Autocar, Prodrive chairman David Richards referred to it as "the Ferrari of the desert."
Fun fact – the car's brochure includes the famous Back to the Future line: "Where we're going, we don't need roads." Indeed!
