Hulme news - Hulme’s Kiwi three? - 2009

Remember the Hulme Can-Am road racer we showed you a few months ago? The 600bhp, 1,000kg supercar from New Zealand? The one that gave us the chance to make lots of unnecessary and largely unfunny sheep-jokes?

Well, it seems Hulme's ambition goes beyond the Caparo T1-like Can-Am supercar. Jock Freemantle - the entrepreneur behind the Can-Am - has revealed that Hulme has plans for two further cars, tentatively called the Hulme Spyder and Hulme F1.

Details are sketchy at the moment, but Freemantle says the Spyder will be released in 2010 and based on the same chassis as the Can-Am. That means it'll likely be powered by same GM-sourced ‘LS7' V8 engine, but expect it to lose the roof and track-focussed rear wing in favour of something slightly more sedate. It'll still be mental, though.

And the F1? Well, despite a rash of new teams gearing up to enter Formula 1 in 2010, it won't be a Grand Prix racer. Instead, according to Freemantle, it'll be a closed cockpit, two-seater road car.

But isn't the Can-Am a closed cockpit, two-seater road car? Will the F1 be even more hardcore? Hulme says it isn't taking any orders until it has completed development of an EU-certified car - a good idea, considering the problems that Caparo has faced with the T1 - but expects to launch the Can-Am in Europe some time next year.

We'll keep an eye on the Hulme project as it develops. Here's hoping they can make it stick - in our book, you can never have too many New Zealand-based, bright orange lightweight road racers... 

Now watch Clarkson thrash the flyweight Caparo T1: