Radical SR10 becomes company's fastest selling model in its history

We already know the new Radical SR10 is fast – 0-97mph in 2.4 seconds and cornering forces of 2.3 lateral g are not small beer – but it’s also just become the fastest-selling car in the company’s quarter-century history.

The British sports racing car manufacturer has built 50 SR10s in the nine months since December 2020, and sold a further 10. That’s a record in terms of volumes for the Peterborough-based company, which celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2022.

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Radical had a busy lockdown. While some of us (this author, at least) still haven’t put up that set of shelves they were planning to get around to, Radical developed the SR10 in its entirety against the backdrop of the pandemic. The first customer SR10 was produced in December 2020.

The SR10 isn’t road-legal, and is designed purely for racing or track-day use, with performance exceeding GT3 racing cars.

Power comes from an engine that started life as Ford’s 2.3-litre four-cylinder EcoBoost unit, but which has been thoroughly reengineered by Radical Performance Engines (RPE).

Even the block is modified. Peak power output is 317kW, and 515Nm goes to the rear wheels via a GT3-spec gearbox and Formula 2-spec transaxle developed with Hewland.

The SR10 is a bigger brother to the rapid SR8, a car which became famous partly for its in-house developed V8 engine and partly for holding a longstanding lap record at the Nurburgring Nordschleife.

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The lower-revving engine in the SR10 has been designed to last longer and offer lower running costs to owners, and the car has been designed to meet a variety of race regulations around the world to make it a global product.

The SR10 has won the opening rounds of the North American Radical Cup, with US becoming one of its strongest markets.

To put the rapidity of the SR10’s sales and manufacture into context, it took four years for SR8 production to hit the 50-car mark.

A production rate of 50 cars in nine months might not be in line with Wolfsburg or Fremont but for the hand-built, borderline-Le Mans-level SR10 created amid the turmoil of 2020, it's a big achievement by the small but talented engineering and manufacturing teams at Radical.

This article was original published by CAR Magazine in the UK.