Zander Drives Cars

For whatever reason, this past week had seen the reveal of two different “off-road” supercars. If I were to have a nickel for each time a new “off-road” supercar was released in 2022, I would have two nickels, which isn’t a lot but it is weird that it happened twice. The concept of an “off-road” supercar is a weird and undefined vague definition that basically revolves around taking a performance-oriented car and modifying it to make it more suitable for Moab rather than Monaco. What those modifications are and how effective they are can be turned into an infinite discussion that won’t get anyone anywhere, the point is that Porsche and Lamborghini, while the first to execute this concept on a large-scale production car, aren’t the first to do this.

Axiom, which my European readers might know as the people who make micro-cars and quadricycles, once created a 395hp, V12, 2-door supercar named the Mega Track. Like the 2020s, the 1990s were a time when everyone and anyone was suddenly making a supercar to rival the likes of the Lamborghini Diablo and Ferrari 512. In order to stand out against those machines, the Mega Track had to be different, and goddamnit it was going to be different. Fitted beefy off-road tires and a ride height similar to that of a Range Rover, the Mega Track (god I love that name) was a supercar meant for the sand dunes.

It isn’t an understatement to say that this car failed, hard. Turns out, nobody wanted a track destroyer that could hit a few Baja jumps as well. Along with the strange concept of the car, the Mega Track was also unreasonably expensive. In 1992, when the car was launched, it retailed for an estimated 1.2 million Francs, which if I did my calculations right, is roughly $2.8 million today. The Mega Track wasn’t that revolutionary either. The engine came from an S-Class, the only gearbox was a 4-speed automatic, and had a top speed of only 155mph. Couple these with some less-than-stellar looks and you have a car that only sold a reported 5 units in the car’s 8-year production run.

While I am sure someone, somewhere, lifted a Muira or threw mud tires on a 250 GTO, the Mega Track was the first infamous example of a supercar capable of off-roading. In the 30 or so years since the Mega Track, multiple companies have attempted to create an off-road supercar with little success. There was the equally infamous but not very super Local Motors Rally Fighter, the more “SUV” looking Laffite G-Tex X-Road, and the more supercar-looking, but canceled Giugiaro Kangaroo that all tried to be the first to capitalize on a market that may or may not exist.

Thankfully, with big names like Porsche and Lamborghini putting their backs into making an all-season supercar, we might finally get a new era of supercars. Probably not considering the rise in high-performance SUVs, but we’ll see if it latches on. Plus, if Volkswagen wants to give a third go at it, they can always recreate Clarksons’ MFB.