Thesis

The 'prone' driver seating posture has been well-practiced throughout history and proven valid in terms of aesthetics and performance, once with jets, now with hang gliders. But on the ground, the advantages are commonly associated with bikes: The record-breaking motorcycles have already proved that the proned position led to outstanding aerodynamics. This also turned out to be true for WMC250EV: While the main cheat code was its duct, its seating posture did have an effect.

WWII was the last time human beings ever seriously experimented the enclosed prone cockpit, e.g. Lockhead EF-80A Shooting Star, Gloucester Meteor F8, etc. Applying the same structure to cars normally wouldn't work out due to some obvious reasons. Firstly, the debate on safety issues relative to weird ergonomics & comfort; Secondly, people wonder what the odds of such a design being actually useful are. For the reasons above, most proned-seating four-wheelers remained in the concept stage, a notable one was the McLaren Vision Gran Turismo, now the McLaren Solus GT, which was altered to have a traditional seat. In recent times we still see people experimenting with this concept in design institutions, e.g. Art Center College of Design.

The Engler Desat is so far the only production example, and yet it is a very debatable one. Negative opinions soared through the internet since the debut of the Desat super quad and throughout the introduction of the Engler V12 just two years ago.

The fact is, maybe a car fitted with a motorcycle drive system and seating position was a good concept, but the purpose of doing so other than 'eye-catching' wasn't well-explored, and engineering specifics needed to be refined according to the two problem statements discussed in question.

Our answer to this is the new, enclosed prone cockpit. We want to be the first to actually build and test an enclosed prone cockpit automobile in real-world, in the form of a V12 single-seater hypercar, to see if it equips vehicles with unfair advantage.