BAC Mono road-going racer gets new 305bhp motor ~ station of gear

BAC's Mono, the road legal single-seat racing car, gets a new 2.5-litre 305bhp engine for the 2016 model year

2015-07-10 13:00

The Mono, from the UK-based Briggs Automotive Company (BAC) is hardly a slow car. Tipping the scales at just 580kg with 280bhp on tap, it's one of our favourite track day cars. Even this clearly isn't enough for some people though as for the 2016 model year BAC has added a new engine, giving this road-legal racer a colossal 305bhp.

The new 2.5-litre, four-cylinder unit comes from tuning experts Mountune and debuted in the Mono at the 2015 Goodwood Festival of Speed. There, it managed a run of just 47.9 seconds up the famous hill. While not an official time, it breaks the road-car record - and impressive, BAC claim that the engine was a prototype and the driver wasn't pushing the car all the way.

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The new engine doesn't weigh any more than the old 2.3-litre unit and means the car's kerb weight is unchanged, so the Mono should retain its pin-sharp handling. Better still, the power-to-weight ratio has increased to 526bhp-per-tonne. To put that into perspective, a McLaren P1 develops 'just' 521bhp-per-tonne.

The Mono's driver at Goodwood, Oliver Webb, has said he'd love to bring the car back next year when it's ready and challenge the record once more. He said, 'It's always a privelige to drive at Goodwood and particularly to be entrusted to give the 2016 Mono its world debut in the 'First Glance Class'... Clearly our times were unofficial, but I would love to come back next year and challenge the record officially, on new tyres and with our latest-spec Mountune engine.'

After recently moving to a new factory in Liverpool, BAC are now able to produce one Mono per month. Various options are available to make your Mono more hardcore, including made-to-measure seats and steering wheels, stickier tyres, and racing brakes.

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