Ss2200: May The Phwoars Be With You

Sydney Morning Herald

Friday July 28, 2000

Peter Lyon

Honda's backroom boys tinker with Formula One engines by day - and turn out Star Wars fantasies like the Speed Star by night. Peter Lyon reports.

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, an R&D team had a dream: to surge beyond the bounds of current automotive design and devise a vehicle that would give the likes of Han Solo and the Millennium Falcon a real run for its money.

The Speed Star 2200, or SS2200, is just such a car, and comes from one of Japan's top performance tune-up studios, Mugen.

By day, the backroom boffins at Honda's high profile motorsports arm work on the next generation F1 engine, but in their spare time they think Star Wars and spaceships.

One look at the SS2200 and you have to concur.

"With this car," says Takashi Uno, Mugen R&D spokesman and design overseer for the SS2200 study, "we thought 'what type of car would Luke Skywalker have wanted?' and took it from there."

Sure, Uno-san. But how does such a respectable group of revheads get to trip down Indulgence Lane to this extent?

Uno gives a simple answer. Every year, Tokyo's Auto Salon gives tune-up studios and high-performance shops the opportunity to display their wares to a discerning public.

A road-legal 500 kW Nissan Skyline GT-R and a 300 km/h Toyota Supra with Ferrari F50 brakes are par for the course at this exhibition of extremes.

Mugen wanted to showcase its leading technologies too and the car of choice was the sharp S2000. But simply to add aero body parts and tinker with its engine was not going to hack it. They wanted people to say "Wow!" as soon as they laid eyes on it.

So the team delved deeped into Stars Wars fantasies of Luke, Han and Leia and added a hint of humour and a dash of daring.

The steel and carbon fibre SS2200, the team's homage to the movie's Millennium Falcon, was penned to be the most outrageous set of wheels at the Salon. It was.

Shod with huge 18-inch pizza pan-like wheels, body detail seemingly inspired by a Great White and a race-spec rear wing, the single seater looks ready to be thrashed.

"But that's not its purpose," insists Uno. "Yes, the car does drive, but it's purely a prototype that will never see the light of day."

And that's sad. Mugen did more than tinker with the 2.2-litre VTEC four-cylinder engine - now producing 203 kW - and wire in a beefed-up engine management computer. It added a large capacity radiator, reinforced clutch, the last word in braking, suspension and exhaust systems and a bespoke windscreen-less cockpit with roll cage and full safety harness.

The exhaust system and the racing suspension have already found their way into speed shops.

So if the car's not headed for the market, why do it? "To show how far we could go in showcasing new technology that will be incorporated into upcoming models," Uno says.

What will become of the SS2200? Crowd reaction tells all. Uno says he'll never forget the look on kids' faces as they fussed over the silver beast. If he has planted a seed in just one future car stylist or engineer, Uno says, he's happy.