Bat out of hell: the Melling Hellcat
Reading this on your computer screen almost certainly means that you’re sitting down. That’s good because you’re not going to believe the figures on Al Melling’s long-awaited Melling Hellcat supercar: a gut-wrenching 1175bhp and at least 275mph, making it potentially the world’s fastest road-legal production car. Yes, you did read that right – one thousand one hundred and seventy-five horses at your personal beck-and-call, capable of propelling this two-seater carbon-fibre-reinforced chariot from 0-60mph in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it 2.6sec. And what a chariot. Melling’s rear-wheel-drive coupe looks incredible from any angle. Inside, you’ll find bucket seats with five-point harnesses each moulded securely to the magnesium and aluminium chassis. It costs £185,000 and there aren’t any options available; anything distracting – like a radio – is jettisoned. Melling calls it ‘a ferocious racing car for the road.’
When can I buy a Hellcat?
The first two have already been sold to buyers in Texas, with delivery expected in September. Each car is built to order and currently takes Melling’s Rochdale-based team of 10 highly skilled workers around 12 months to build and deliver. Melling expects to take on up to 30 more employees by the end of the year to reduce the waiting time to five months.
Is this another British supercar cobbled together from the parts bin?
Refreshingly, the Hellcat is not a parts bin special. Melling’s team produces the whole car – save for the wiper-motor and the brakes – inhouse using its own tooling. Melling told CAR Online that the project was not about profit. By his own admission, he is really semi-retired. Already a veteran of 38 different engines, designing the Hellcat is the fulfilment of a personal dream rather than a commercial one, he says.
Al Melling… remind me who he is
Melling is a veteran of the British sports car scene and made his name at Lola and TVR – and even bid as part of a consortium to buy Rolls-Royce in 1998. He calls that failed bid ‘very, very sad indeed’ and has spent the past nine years working on the Hellcat. It’s going to be very quick indeed. ‘We’ve got it up to about 300mph without too much trouble,’ says Melling. ‘At 275mph, it’s actually pretty comfortable and most reasonable drivers shouldn’t have any problems up to about 230-240mph in this car. That’s why it’s been called the British Ferrari.’
What’s all this about the Hellcat competing at Le Mans?
It seems very likely that it will. The car has been designed and built from day one with Le Mans in mind and requires very little modification to make the transformation from road to track. Ironically, the road car’s 1175bhp will have to be restricted to 612bhp to compete in its class. This year the Hellcat team will go to Le Mans ‘to have a look’, next year ‘to have a go’ – and in 2009 they will ‘go to win’. Melling has his sights set very high.