It is one of America’s fastest cars, produced in the same era as the Saleen S7. The company, located in Florida, had 26 specialists working on the MT900. And if such monsters as Saleen and SSC are impressive first of all by their power, the MT900 impresses by its low weight. The numerical designation in the name indicates the estimated weight in kilograms. Could you imagine that a supercar with a V8 engine can weigh only 900kg? – I didn’t. The letters MT are the initials of the creators of this car, Warren Mosler and Rod Trenn. I think everyone understands that Mosler was the founder of the company, but Trenn is a talented designer, who had previously worked on the Corvette C5.
Mosler MT900 is a rare case where the car was originally produced as a race car, but with time received road modifications. More than half of 60 produced MT900s were race cars. The last, unlike SSC Ultimate Aero and Saleen S7 were equipped with ABS and traction control. But the cars were not equipped with hydraulic power steering, nor any other kind of power steering. Warren Mosler explained this decision by the fact that his car is light and it does not need power steering. The power steering would make the car heavier, and weight is the main enemy for speed.
The first prototype appeared in 2000, but it was still a long way from being specified as a road car. Initially, in 2001, the racing version of the MT900R was presented. At its first competition, held at the 24 Hours of Daytona, the American car won the pole position. A year later Mosler won the Grand AM race in Miami and took second place at the 24 Hours of Bathurst. In 2003, Mosler again took pole position at Daytona. But this time, at the race itself, the MT900R took; – 1st, 3rd and 4th places.
Mosler MT900R bikes raced in the British, Australian and Japanese racing series. In the Netherlands was even created a racing series – Mosler. Totally 30 cars were built, most of them belonged to a private team Rollcentre Racing.
In 2005, on the base of the MT900R, the road modification designated by the letter – S was made. By the way, the first owner of such a car was George Lucas (creator of Star Wars).
In 2006, another road car MT900GTR was presented, and then the GTR XX. Only 7 cars were produced. One of them was finalized by the company Intense Automotive Design (IAD). It is even hard to believe, but despite equipping with all-wheel drive, the dry weight of the car was reduced to 700kg. We will talk about the dynamic characteristics of this monster below.
Price and sales of the Mosler MT900.
You could buy a racing MT900R for $119,000. Road MT900S was sold for $189,000. In 2010 there was a lightweight version Photon, which just weighed 900 kg. The cost of such a supercar was $394,000.
Exterior and photo.
The drag coefficient of Mosler supercar is only 0.25. This is an incredibly good streamlined performance. For comparison, the new SSC Tuatara has a drag coefficient of 0.279.
Returning to the weight of the machine we should note that the curb weight of the prototype was 1175kg. But even the road version – MT900S had a dry weight (with an empty fuel tank) of 998kg. This machine has a length of 4801 mm and a wheelbase of 2768 mm.
Of course such impressive weight figures could not be achieved without the widest use of carbon fiber. The Mosler’s monocoque is made from carbon fiber, while the front and rear subframe are made from chrome-moly steel. The body panels are also made of carbon fiber.
But there are many other supercars, which widely use carbon fiber, but which are not so lightweight. Lightweight modification – Photon was also equipped with carbon fiber, wheel disks. That of course gives the advantage in weight, but it is not a unique solution that is not used by other manufacturers. The last modification was made only in two copies.
The American supercar is shod in 265/35 R18 tires at the front and 335/30 R20 at the back.
There is an incredibly large engine cover. It is comparable in size to the cover on the Ford GT2005. Even more interesting is that there is no cover at the front of the body where other supercars have a front trunk. The entire front fascia can be removed along with the headlights. It’s a solution from the racing world, but in the case of the Mosler, it’s used on road cars as well. The air ducts on the front fenders look very impressive.
Don’t you think the taillights here are from the Corvette C5? The GTR model has a curb weight of 1050kg, and the GTR XX is 150kg lighter. The MT900 was equipped with only one windshield wiper for racing purposes.
Interior and equipment.
The Mosler’s cabin is cramped, but there is noticeably more leg room than in the Saleen S7. The doors of the MT900 open in a gull wing pattern. Which is the norm for racing cars. The door keys are decorated with the brand emblem.
This car has very high thresholds – they are higher than the seats. The latter solution comes with the highest level of safety. And when developing the road modifications, two cars were crashed to test the car exactly for safety.
The interior of the road cars is trimmed with leather, alcantara and has carbon fiber inserts. On the GTR XX the center console and the panelling of the front roof pillars are made in the form of carbon fiber. But this is not the paneling, but the open part of the carbon-fiber monocoque. The seats of the race cars have no panelling at all. And even on the road version, the driver’s seat is offset closer to the center than the passenger’s seat. This is done for better weight distribution. Road cars are equipped with air conditioning and power windows. At the same time, only the center piece of glass is lowered into the door.
Interestingly, for all the racing nature of the Mosler supercar, there is a fairly large trunk in the rear of the body. The luggage compartment has no trim – the floor and walls are made of bare carbon fiber.
Even on a road-going version of the MT900S the noise level at idle is 73 decibels. The steering wheel and steering wheel switches have been borrowed from the Subaru Impreza WRX.
Engine and technical characteristics of the Mosler MT900.
Originally the prototype was equipped with a 5.7 liter LS6 V8 engine. With 350 horsepower and 470Nm of torque the car reached 100km in 3.5 seconds. The gearbox was a six speed, ZF manual which was already fitted to a Porsche. This prototype completed the quarter mile in 12.0 seconds with an exit speed of 118 miles (190km).
Mosler MT900S was originally equipped with the 435 horsepower, 5.7 liter (345.7d) Corvette Z06 engine. Later the supercar was equipped with an Eaton supercharger. With a compression ratio of 10.5:1 and boost pressure of 0.41 bar, power was increased to 608bhp at 6300 rpm and torque to 755Nm at 4,000 rpm. It was equipped with a six-speed manual transmission and a main gear ratio of 3.44:1.
In the Photon version, the Mosler MT900S had a Hewland robotized transmission and titanium springs in the suspension. Up to 100 km Mosler could accelerate in 3.1 s and maximum speed was 305 km per hour.
Mosler MT900GTR had a 7.0 liter engine with a compression ratio of 11.1:1. It could be equipped with a six-speed manual or automatic transmission. The GTR was equipped with carbon-ceramic brake discs. With a maximum power of 600hp the acceleration to 100km is only 3.1 seconds and 6.5 seconds is enough to reach 160km.
The Mosler MT900GTR XX has 620 horsepower. It takes just 3.0 seconds to go from zero to 100 kilometers and in 8.7 seconds GTR XX can accelerate to 200 kilometers per hour. The Mosler completes the quarter mile in 10.8s with an exit speed of 139.8mph.
Tuned by the IAD company, the GTR XX has a cubic capacity of 6.6 liters, running on race fuel with a power of 2,500 hp! Dynamic data is not officially confirmed, but acceleration to 100 km/h is claimed to be 2.3 seconds and top speed is 491 km/h.
This is one of the fastest supercars in the US. It may be a bit less powerful than the Saleen, SSC, or Hennessey, but it’s a very fast car. Its speed is not defined by its high top speed, but by its ability to go as fast as possible on the racetrack. It’s a rare case where a road supercar was created from a race car, and everyone who bought an MT900 probably appreciates their car for just that. And it is a true exotic, one of the rarest supercars of our time.
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