The Brabham BT62 can be made road legal

By topgear, 08 January 2019
Brabham BT62

“It’s an entirely bespoke, clean-sheet design, dreamed up by Brabham purely to serve the race-track and nothing else. No road-going frivolity here.”

So said TopGear.com when the Brabham BT62 launched. Seems such single-mindedness has been putting potential owners off a bit, though, and news emerges that Brabham will, in fact, make it road-legal. Well, some of them.

If you’re really keen on having a BT62 you can take to your local cars and coffee meeting, Brabham will oblige. After telling TG about the option back in summer 2018 (remember when it was warm and sunny?) it’s now been confirmed as a £150,000 (RM787,500) option, applied before your car’s delivered.

The changes include an axle-lift system to help you over speed bumps, an increase in steering lock, air con and better quality materials inside, plus some door locks and an immobiliser. It’s all reversible, too.

“The objective was to make the car legal, safe and usable on the road with minimal compromise to its race-bred circuit dynamics,” says Brabham. “Whilst there will be a slight increase in weight there will be no reduction in power, retaining the 700bhp power output.”

European cars will all have the changes in the UK; if that means a country in mainland Europe, Brabham will pay for your car to be flown to your home. Then back again a year later. For the car to retain its UK registration, it needs to be here at least once every 12 months, so for the first two years you own the BT62, Brabham will fly it back and forth for a yearly service to keep it within the rules.

After that, you’ll fund the process yourself. Which, if you can afford a £1.2million, 700bhp, F1-inspired supercar, is probably no hardship…