News : UK’s Trident to unveil diesel supercar

Trident Iceni

Trident, will display its all-new Iceni at Salon Privé 2012, held at West London’s Syon Park from 5-7 September. The Iceni’s uses Trident’s patented Torque Multiplication technology to deliver a claimed top speed of nearly 200mph and a 0-60mph time of 3.7 seconds. The Iceni is built to order in Norfolk and priced from £75,000.

A mid-front mounted 6.6-litre turbo-diesel capable of running on mineral diesel, bio diesel, palm oil and linseed oil delivers 430bhp and 950lb ft at under 3250rpm. An option to upgrade to 660bhp is also available, delivering 1050lb ft.

At a constant 70mph the specially tuned engine runs at just 980rpm, is capable of 68.9mpg and will keep going for over 2000miles on one full tank of diesel. Some clams – we can’t wait to try this muscle-car, which could evoke some pre-war sensations thanks to the lazy delivery of its truck engine.

Trident Sports Cars managing director, Phillip Bevan, says: ‘We are very pleased to be at Salon Privé which this year is a great celebration of all things British and home grown talent – something we feel very strongly about at Trident. It is also a place where sports cars and super cars of this calibre are sold, and we look forward to taking new orders for the Iceni at Syon Park this September.’

Trident Iceni

Keith Adams

34 Comments

  1. “At 70mph the engine runs at 980RPM….”

    For how long precisely? and more to the point what’ll happen if you try to accelerate in top at that RPM?

    I see a munched engine and warranty claims worth of a Boudicca-esque hissy fit. Also not the most intelligent idea to name a car after a tribe whos main claim to fame is burning everything in sight and then coming second in the ‘all-comers bash-your-former-allies’ tournament circa 60CE.

    A competition which our erstwhile allies, the US, seem intent on turning into an Olympic event given their present form.

    That said, it looks nice – although I dont know whether people will be so keen to buy it when it sounds like a breathed-on TE20 on start up…

  2. Whats the betting the ‘patented torque multiplying technology’ is the same damn great torque converter formerly seen bolted to the front of the common or lesser-spotted Torqueflite automatic?
    I wonder if they have strapped said to the back end of the gearbox – that would give multiplication without the blancmange stop light derby experience.

  3. The big engine and ultra-high gearing puts me in mind of the V8 Bristols.

    The engine is a GM Duramax – Isuzu did the design work. It’s quite advanced, with common rail direct injection, but has an iron bloke, so won’t be light.

    I look upon it and I’m still thinking “wrong, mad and stupid”.

    And where did these awful headlights come from?

  4. Wrong, mad and stupid. Just like a Bristol 412.

    It won’t go anywhere, this car. We know that, but it is a fascinating concept. Always loves driving torquey cars with interstellar gearing.

  5. Have they been smoking turnips again in Norfolk? A diesel supercar with a truck engine? It won’t sell, and I doubt it will get much further than the prototype stage

  6. @2 – get your head out of the sand – if a Diesel can win Le Mans, power various performance saloons (Jag XF being a prime example) and also a win a saloon car championship (SEAT Leon TDi), it can live in a sports car. The fact that this one, whether it will succeed or not can also run on palm oil and linseed oil makes it greener than any petrol engine, and the low down grunt will be fun too. Interesting looking car – did they steal the design from an un-launched TVR do you think?

  7. The styling is good- in parts. Not sure about the hard-top, as unless this car is absolutely huge it doesn’t look like a six-footer like me could fit in it- at least without a hole in the top for my head to poke through.

    I can’t really see the attraction of a very low revving sports car- seems a bit oxymoronic. And yes, a diesel can win Le Mans, but they would have been tuned for speed not economy. As for linseed oil- not exactly cheap to buy in quantity. And palm oil is very far indeed from being ‘green’ as vast amounts of forest are slashed and burned in order to prepare the ground to grow the stuff- causing huge loss of habitat and smog/smoke issues that have plagued South-East Asian cities in the recent past, not to mention peatlands which are essential for soaking up rainwater, and release large amounts of CO2 when the land is cultivated.

  8. @11 – Good points. However, I’m trying to make the point that Diesels are not solely tractor, bus or truck engines anymore, and most of tootle around in them very happily, economically and quietly, enjoying the torque, and not in anyway wishing we had a petrol power plant. The whole ‘diesel engines are crude and inferior’ argument belongs in the 1980s.

  9. The fastest car I’ve driven was a diesel, an XF S, truely frightening performance in a car that looks like a plain XF.
    I’m just trying to imagine the epic level of understeer this thing will have.

  10. @11

    Not exactly. Yes it can run on Linseed oil and Palm oil and the like – but that is hardly a greener option by much. Firstly its hard to find unless you are best mates with half the farming population of Berkshire. Secondly while dumping the stuff into the tank will be greener than doing the same with mineral diesels – you still have to transport it (using oil derivatives), fertilise it (using oil derivatives), spray it (using oil derivatives) and harvest it (using, yup you guessed it). Then you take to be processed using various dryers and crushers and filter systems and the like, either directly powered by oil derivatives or indirectly (by the various types of fossil fuel power stations). And this is ‘green’ how?
    It is true that with a ZF type 8 speed transmission a Diesel engine is uniquely suited to being a rich 17 year olds slaughter carriage of choice, due to low speed torque, and multi-ratios solving the curiously resiliant ‘runs out of steam at 4000’ problem but at best even with the newest engines its less than 35% efficient and Duratorq arent exactly the newest engines on the block, neither in principle or design.

  11. @16 Maybe you’re right. Past caring. I was going to reply, but it’s getting a bit ‘Autocar Forum’ around here, and I’m off for a ride on my bike anyway – no fossil fuels used, only my energy and lungs……

  12. @ 10 aha Diesel can win le mans (mostly beacouse the rules are changed a bit in favour of the diesels against thepetrol ones) and theri regin is purely political and publicity made and purely powered from the VAG and PSAin minority in autosport

    cmon burning palm oil is burning food ( and there is people hungry arround) and a petrol engine can run on alcohol ( ok no booze you can reply) or gas…and is in fact cleaner (if you belive that cars are such a big polution factor and not planes ships and thermo electric powerplants for example)

    and if we are such ambientalists every turbo diesel car (and od this site is an article how they are uneconomic) when accelerate smokes black nomatter what kind of fiter have

    so adding this facts on all the others everyone can make his own conclusions (aha a sport jaguar for me is the XKR-5 litre petrol supercharged….)

  13. Ok, I’m being a bit pedantic. Call up any fleet manager of any major company car, or hire car provider in the UK, or for that matter Europe (what’s left of it). What are they all running? I’ll tell you now. It ain’t petrol.

  14. @19&20 hehehehe first point i am Slovenian….the autocar remark is useless for me beacouse I even dont know what they do there and realy didnt care.

    second in europe company cars make at least 50-70 000 km yearly and yes in 3 yrs they are scrap metal and yes they are diesels and yes they have at least 2 new turbochargers installed

    is a fact that diesel engines are toe torque and low reeving engines. For giving some results they need a supercharger and we have to admit that they also need some gears more than the petrol ones.

    In a sport car installing a diesel is crime in my oppinion and show just two things (or the owner spend all money on the car and have no money for the petrol or he is a “clever one” and will save 10 quids on petrol driving a car that he paid 100 000…..)-what is the sense of the BMW M5 diesel….

    comfronting a a petrol and a diesel engine on the same basis
    (displacement, induction, and gearbox) give the real confrontation of the use of a kind of an engine (a petrol engine cen never be in a tractor giving the same results as the diesel….)

  15. Hmmmmm…

    I personally like diesels… Especially the torque. The idea of being able to do 70mph with less than 1k revs is curious and intriguing but ultimately, seems incongruous to a super car…

    I can imagine this traveling through tunnels on the continent and it will sound like an Intercity 125. Which would be thrilling for the driver (I think) and perhaps a little un-nerving for everyone else…

    Is it just me or does 6.6 litres seem a little small for a truck? 16 litres is more of a truck engine to me…

  16. Perhaps a Merc V10 diesel out of an old powerliner truck?They are turning to detriot diesel next year.

  17. I checked the calendar to see if it was 1 April. why would anyone buy this? Sorry to be a party pooper.

  18. Utterly pointless.. Why are we wasting time on performance diesels? instead of on getting better (desiel beating) efficency out of petrol engines? its totally possible, and also worth remembering for every litre of Diesel that you get from cracking crude oil you also get 2 litres of petrol

  19. Dear bloody me! Obviously, they have the reject moulds from TVR and then add those hideous rear arches.

    Please don’t take the mick out of Bristol Mr.Adams and others. The engineering and design that went into them was too aircraft standards. Yes,they were unique and quirky like so many others but, they were far above the others. Read L.J.K.Setrights definitive history if you need to be convinced.

    H.

  20. I did read somewhere of Lotus doing a study into building a car for Le Mans with a gas turbine engine from a helicopter.

    Their calculations predicted it would win by a fair margin, but would need 25 refuelling stops.

  21. Nice car from the side, then you see the front view and see “those headlights”! Not to mention the bonnet and slightly too short overall proportions.
    As for diesel engines, the are the devil’s work (well he was German actually ;-)). If the motor manufacturers had invested a quarter of the money in developing petrol engines that has been spent on diesel development there’d be no contest.
    Add to that fact that modern diesels emit ultra fine particulates that embed themselves in your lungs forever and the oh-so-wonderful particulate filters that 1, need changing at huge cost and 2, “regenerate”, i.e.automatic purging that blows all the crap out in one go that has been collected in the filer, i.e. a motor manufacturer con.

  22. I have been told by a Swaffham resident that Trident have just had another thinning out of the staff numbers.
    Interpret this how you want……

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