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Written by:
Cassio Cortes
RACER Magazine http://www.racer.com
RACER Magazine http://www.racer.com
05/08/2008 - 05:18 PM
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
With 115hp on tap, the real-world Green Energy can't work miracles... (Eraldo Platz photo) » More Photos
Be careful what you wish for, especially if you are, simultaneously, an amateur racecar driver and a movie fan.
Because in that case, the idea of driving a $250k replica of a racecar featured in the blockbuster movie Speed Racer will sound like a sensational, incredible, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. But, as we often find when fantasy and reality clash, it isn’t.
Lights, camera, action: the set is a rainy go-kart track in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Suited up, I stand beside "Green Energy," the only running replica among the cars featured on the Wachowski brothers’ hit film besides the "Mach 5" used for some of the shooting – a machine that is one of the few things you see on screen, other than the human actors, that isn’t 100% virtual, generated by the very latest technology in computer graphics. After starting a revolution on film with their Matrix trilogy, Andy and Larry Wachowski cast Emile Hirsch for the leading role and set out to achieve a similar landmark in animation with their latest release, based on the cult Japanese cartoon from the 1960s.
The Green Energy is Petrobras’ entry on the Speed Racer grid. The Brazilian oil giant joins the likes of McDonald’s, General Mills, Target and Mattel, among others, as the production has generated an estimated $80m in this kind of corporate sponsorship. Forking out $250k to build a running replica made a lot of sense for Petrobras as a way to maximize the $1m investment it made
Author observes Formula Ford innings of $250k machine. (Eraldo Platz photo) » More Photos
The first striking thing about the low, long, wide Green Energy is its paint. Signed by Sid Mosca, the special-paintings guru who took care of Emerson Fittipaldi and Ayrton Senna’s helmets, among others, its detailing is rich enough to withstand glares under any auto show’s spotlights. The pictures here, under overcast skies, don’t really do it justice. One can only wonder how much it cost, given that Sid’s helmet jobs usually start in the thousands of dollars range…
Underneath the fancy body lies a stretched, reinforced, thoroughly modified Formula Ford chassis. How modified? It now weighs over 2,000 pounds, about twice the mass it had before the Nafta Motorsport shop, which built the car, began to work its magic.
The problem is that looks, not performance, were Nafta’s utmost priority when commissioning its magicians, who took 73 days to bring the replica to fruition. Hence, while the cockpit is lined with futuristic-looking lime-green digital dials, the measly 1.6-liter, four-cylinder engine – good for a yawning 115hp – is retained, and so is the original gearbox, which lacks a first gear (most F-Ford cars do, as a way to save weight).
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