For self-prepared backyard racers through to full-blown works teams, one challenge that faces all motorsport competitors is whether they need to compete in a production based vehicle.

Production based vehicles by virtue, are a performance compromise. Taking the ‘all things to all men’ approach is not a terrific place to begin building a competition car.

The development process of turning something that is meant to get mum, dad and the kids to the shops into a high performance racing car is a long and expensive and in many cases the final outcome is not that great.

Many different types of ‘competition only’ vehicles have been developed over the years, with so many differing styles of construction and price points.

Generally speaking these ‘competition only’ cars have a design brief that makes them highly specialized, expensive and ideally suited to the job at hand. What often suffers in this process is the final appearance as it only has a slight resemblance to any product a manufacturer may want to sell to the public.

Of course, manufacturer backing is critical to the health of any racing series, there have been many attempts to build competition cars that appeal to both manufacturers and their target markets.

For race vehicles that are required to look like road cars, the most cost effective, high performance and reliable option to date has been Spaceframe Silhouette cars.

Spaceframe has the ability to develop a clean sheet design to a very high standard of performance and strength from a relatively inexpensive and easy to work material, tube steel.

While Spaceframes are hardly a new idea, developments in CAD cam and finite stress analysis have made things like the carbon monocoque possible meaning the Spaceframe has now entered a new phase in terms of it’s performance envelope.

Anyone doubting the capabilities of the Spaceframe production Silhouettes need only look at the amazing levels of performance reached by Group B Rally cars as far back as the early 1980's, - almost 40 years ago. Recently the most obvious examples of the high performance Spaceframes have been off-road racing vehicles such as trophy trucks.

By necessity, these vehicles have become so strong that even constant high speed battering is not enough to damage these pure breed racers. In fact it is more common for the supporting componentry to break first.

Olsbergs MSE has taken this same design philosophy into their next generation Rallycross cars. These vehicles are designed to withstand the rigours of mixed surface competition day-in-day-out whilst utilising running gear vastly over engineered for their power plants specific output.

Everything on the Olsberg Supercar Lite is designed for both performance and longevity. The custom built engines make a very useable 300 lb/ft of torque while the gearbox and diffs are rated to 660 lb/ft.

Weighing in at only 1100 kg ensures the cars are light on brakes and tyres and they can change direction like a thoroughbred. As a result, maintenance and running costs are easier to contain.

The composite bodies are easy to replace and a variety of molds that mimic the shape of any modern hatchbacks are already available. This makes the Supercar Lite a cost effective marketing tool for any hatchback manufacturer, while ensuring absolute performance parity.

The use of Olsbergs Supercar Lite around the globe has seen the proof of concept delivered in full public view with a finishing rate that would shame most factory works teams.

For more information on these amazing vehicles or the Championship in which they run in Australia contact http://www.extremerallycross.com.au/

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