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The Devel Sixteen is finally here, in production form. Yes, the years-long journey of the fabled 16-cylinder hypercar is finally over, as seen in the above video. This is the real deal, built for a specific customer and currently undergoing final tuning. There’s just one small problem – it only has eight cylinders. Guess that makes it the Devel Eight, then?
Supercar Blondie had the chance to check it out, but before crying foul on the Devel Sixteen not living up to its namesake, read this article and watch the video. By doing that, you’ll learn the customer for this first car actually didn’t want the V16. Apparently, there could be some issues for that buyer getting a car with 16 cylinders. That’s all the explanation we’re given, so if anyone knows a part of the world where you can’t own a Bugatti, perhaps that’s a clue to where this Devel is headed.
As you might expect, that means this particular Devel Sixteen also lacks the 5,000 horsepower (3,728 kilowatts) originally promised when it was announced … almost 10 years ago. Instead, there will be 2,000 hp under the lengthy engine cover, courtesy of a custom-built twin-turbocharged V8. We don’t have any details on the engine, but we’ll admit it sounds very healthy. It’s also apparently still in the tuning process, so it seems that 2,000-hp benchmark hasn’t been met yet.
Production car number two, however, will reportedly pack a proper 5,000-hp V16. Actually, that power figure is now down to 3,000 hp (2,237 kW), which is still an absurd amount for a road car. And we know the V16 exists, because we’ve seen it in action before. This first model with the V8 is targeting a top speed of 249 mph (400 km/h) so even with half the cylinders, it’s not slow by any means.
To give credit where it’s due, bringing any new vehicle to market is tough, never mind one as radical as this. The Devel Sixteen is 17 feet long, weighs 5,000 pounds, and it looks like nothing else on the road. From the outside anyway – inside you’ll find all kinds of components borrowed from the C8 Corvette, but hey, it’s running and driving and sounds like a monster. That’s further than many startups get, so we’ll hold out hope for a proper V16 model to follow.