By: MATT CAMPBELL on July 10, 2010
Original Article: AGE, THE (MELBOURNE)

High hopes. That pretty much sums up the American-designed Dagger GT concept car.

According to the car’s creators, TranStar, the Dagger GT aims to break all the rules on the way to becoming the fastest supercar in the world.

The company claims it will not quit until it achieves the following goals: a quarter-mile time of less than 6.7 seconds; record lap-times at the Nurburgring in Germany and Virginia International Raceway; a sub 1.5-second 0-100km/h time; and a top speed of more than 480km/h. Jeepers!

How does the Dagger GT aim to do all this? With a twin-turbo multi-fuel 9.4-litre V8 engine producing 1500kW of power and close to 2800Nm of torque, of course. All that gusto is sent to the rear wheels via a reinforced six-speed manual gearbox.

There will be a couple of different models of the Dagger available including a more comfort-focused version and a luxurious model called the GT-X. Each car will be hand-built and customized to the owner’s preferences — including colour, wheels and interior trim.

The car’s lead designer, Phil Frank, is well known in the ultra-fast car community — he also penned the LeMans-winning Saleen S7 supercar.

“It’s time to smile and have fun again,” the company exclaims. “This supercar is being specially designed to break all world records and to bring back the most popular class of race car: the unlimited class which has been regulated, restricted and compromised into extinction.”

TranStar says it plans to have five Daggers on the road next year, and three of them are already accounted for. The company plans to build 10 more cars in 2012, provided the first five examples are snapped up in time.

Possibly the maddest thing about the Dagger GT is that TranStar plans to offer this world-beating behemoth for just $US450,000 ($530,000). So it will be quicker than the recently crowned world’s fastest car – the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Super Sport – with a price-tag of about $3m less.