Gran Turismo 5’s Red Bull X1 breaks cover

We’ve seen several teaser shots of the collaboration between Polyphony Digital and Red Bull for Gran Turismo’s 5’s ultimate driving machine, and now the full car has been revealed in the latest issue of Car magazine (Issue 580).

It has been developed in conjunction with Red Bull’s technical director, Adrian Newey, and their star F1 driver, Sebastian Vettel and Car magazine had the exclusive opportunity to interview Newey and Kazunori Yamauchi for the article.

It’s a fascinating concept and should make the long drawn-out wait for GT5 feel worth it when we eventually get our hands on a copy before Christmas. The X1 is the answer to Kazunori Yamauchi’s question: “If you built the fastest racing car on land, one that throws aside all rules and regulations, what would that car look like, how would it perform, and how would it feel to drive?”

The specs that Newey and Yamauchi came up with are as follows;

* Engine: gas turbine, 1483bhp @ 15,000RPM, 527lb ft @ 12,000RPM
* Transmission: continuously variable, rear-wheel drive
* Top Speed: 249mph
* Weight: 545kg
* Length/Width/Height: 4750/2180/980mm
* Suzuka Lap Time: 1:11.540 (compare with Vettel’s 2009 F1 lap time of 1:30.833)
* Special Features: enclosed wheels, “fan element” to increase low and medium-speed downforce (much like a vacuum cleaner)

Vettel was the first person to try out the X1 on GT5 and immediately went nearly 20 seconds quicker around Suzuka than the record for an F1 car – you can just imagine him driving the circuit a fortnight ago and considering his 2010 RB5 to be… well, a bit slow!

It’s a stunning looking race car and now you’ve got a target to aim for (1:11.540) when you load GT5 on your own PS3.

[styledbox type=”general” width=”600″ align=”center”]Watch the video: of Red Bull’s X1 prototype on SkiddPlayer[/styledbox]

Source: thanks to gtplanet.net and CAR magazine