The 5 cars Doc Brown would use if Back To The Future was made today
Move over DeLorean!
Fans of Back to the Future would probably be upset, but I’m just going to put it out there anyways. The DeLorean DMC-12 is a cow of a car. Although it has immensely cool gull-wing doors and was classified as a two-door sports car, any bona fide petrolhead would know that it is the automotive equivalent of a muscle man with air-filled muscles. To put it simply, it was the Tuscani of the Eighties.
It had a wheezing V6 engine sourced from Renault that produced a paltry 130hp at a time when pedigreed sports cars from Ferrari, Porsche, Jaguar and the likes were producing well in excess of 200hp. This meant a 0-100km/h time of close to 9 seconds, and that’s with a manual transmission. With the 3-speed auto, it would take over 10.5 seconds before the speedometer read 100km/h - woefully slow for a so-called sports car even by 80s’ standards. This is also why there was no way it could have hit the magical 88mph (141km/h) mark in the parking lot.
Still, I suppose most people would say the DeLorean DMC-12 is a good-looking car. Certainly, there’s something unique about the way it looks that you just don’t see in cars today. And who would have thought that using unpainted, brushed stainless steel panels as the body would create such an iconic look?
Fortunately, if Back to the Future was made today, there would be no shortage of quick cars. But traveling to the future is not just about performance alone. You would need to blend in too, and that requires a car that wouldn’t look out of place 20 or even 50 years into the future. You would probably want a car that can make use of alternative fuel sources too, since petrol is probably only going to get more expensive in the future or might even run out entirely - depending on how far forwards into the future you go.
In any case, here are my pick for the top five cars that Doc Brown would probably use if Back to the Future was made today.
Pagani Huayra
Pagani is a small automaker in Modena, Italy, and the Huayra that it makes is one of the wackiest and most extreme hypercars today. Though the Huayra has some similarities with the DeLorean DMC-12 - it has gull-wing doors too - it is also everything that the DeLorean is not when it comes to performance.
Powered by a 6-liter V12 made specially by Mercedes’ AMG division, the Huayra produces 730hp and a staggering 1000nm of twist. This propels it to 100km/h in just 3.2 seconds. And in the time it takes the DeLorean to reach 100km/h, the Huayra would have already breached 200km/h. Its top speed, if you should be bold enough to attempt it, is 383km/h. So it’s painfully clear that the Huayra will have no problem hitting the 88mph mark to travel through time. Heck, it could probably even fly if not for all the high-tech aero keeping it glued to the road.
But performance aside, the Huayra should have no problems blending in, no matter how far into the future you travel. Just look at the thing. And this extends to the interior too, which Top Gear described as “a Victorian’s idea of the 23rd century.” The dials, knobs and buttons are all meticulously crafted and milled and won’t look out of place even a hundred years from now.
GT by Citroën
Did you play Gran Turismo 5? If you did, then this car might be familiar to you. Its the GT by Citroën, a concept car that was created specially for the game by French automakers Citroën and Polyphony Digital, the developers of Gran Turismo.
If you thought the Huayra didn’t look bonkers enough to fit into the streets of the future, then this is the antidote. The large intakes and exaggerated tail-end is unlike any car I’ve seen. If the Huayra looks as if it could fit into the future, the GT by Citroën looks as if it came from the future.
But perhaps the most amazing thing about the GT by Citroën is that it was actually built. Yes, a working prototype was built by Citroën and it even comes with a monster 5.4-liter V8 engine sourced from Ford. Though the working prototype produced “just” 646hp - far less than the game version’s 789hp - it has more than enough grunt to outrun the DeLorean and hit that 88mph target speed.
Citroën had plans to produce just six of these for sale at around $2.1 million each, but it seems now that the cash-strapped company has scrapped those plans, which is a real pity. Still, there’s one working prototype somewhere out there which Doc Brown could use.
BMW i8
No car other so perfectly captures the zeitgeist of our times than BMW’s new i8. Faced with the pressing need to save and preserve our environment, automakers have turned to electric and hybrid cars in an attempt to cut emissions and save our world. As such, the BMW i8 a high-tech plug-in hybrid car that has an electric motor and a small 1.5-liter three-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine. Though the petrol engine is tiny, this upside to all of this is that the i8 can be charged from the mains, which in turn makes the i8 suitable for time travel. Travel far enough ahead in time and petrol might no longer be around, but I bet electricity would still be widely used.
Furthermore, the BMW i8 looks absolutely futuristic and fantastic. It’s hard to believe that it is actually made here and now and that it is possible to buy and drive one on the road today, provided you have a fat stack of cash lying around, of course - the i8 is S$580,000, inclusive of COE thankfully.
Oh and don’t worry about hitting 88mph. Though the BMW i8 is a hybrid, it was designed specifically with speed in mind. The petite 3-cylinder turbocharged engine produces close to 230hp while the electric motor chimes in with an additional 131hp for a grand total of around 360hp. 0-100km/h is dealt with in just 4.4 seconds and top speed is limited to 160mph, so the i8 will handily outrun the DeLorean.
Eagle Speedster
The Pagani Huayra, GT by Citroën and BMW i8 are all undeniably modern-looking cars that look as if they wouldn't be out of place even if they were parked on the street 50 or 100 years from now. But we don’t know that for sure do we? So here’s a thought, why not pick a car with a design that’s already tried and tested?
Enter the Eagle Speedster, which is really a modern reimagining of the iconic Jaguar E-Type from the Sixties - that’s right, it’s based on a design that’s over 50 years old. But just look at it, it doesn’t look one bit like it’s 50. This is what timelessness looks like.
Though the Speedster is based on the E-Type, every bit of it is actually new. The body is larger, wider and deeper and the panels are all aluminum. It also has new suspension, brakes, wheels, differential and all that other cool stuff that modern sports cars have. Oh, and the engine is also a new 4.7-liter straight-six unit too that produces 310hp. In a car that weighs just over 1000kg, the Speedster dispatches 0-100km/h in just 5 seconds. And if you keep your foot planted onto the accelerator, it speeds onwards to a top speed of 257km/h. But the number that dwarves them all is its price. It will cost at least S$1 million. Let’s hope Doc Brown has been a been a happy little saver.
Toyota Mirai
Wait, what, the Toyota Mirai? But it looks like a Corolla. Hold up, let me explain. Mirai is Japanese for “the future” and it is powered by what Toyota thinks will be the fuel for the times to come - hydrogen.
Woah, isn’t hydrogen really flammable? The Hindenburg used hydrogen didn’t it, and we all know how that turned out. Well yes, but hydrogen is stored at extremely high pressures within the Mirai in an ultra-strong carbon fiber tank. And if does puncture, the hydrogen stored within escapes into the atmosphere almost instantaneously. Experts say that compared to petrol, hydrogen is actually far safer.
This is why there’s a high chance that hydrogen could be the fuel of the future. For a start, hydrogen is abundant in our environment; and unlike pure electric cars which takes hours to charge, refilling a hydrogen car takes mere minutes like a petrol car. This makes the Mirai a great choice for time travel as Doc Brown and Marty McFly need not worry about getting fuel to make the journey back.
