Watch First Road Test Of 1,500-Horsepower F1-Sounding Supercar

What you’re looking at here is the Mazzei Formula Five, a Le Mans-style prototype built from a kit car, but which, incredible as it may seem, is also fully road legal. It looks amazing, but the real magic is what’s beneath that rear canopy. It’s a Mazda-inspired five-rotor engine – at one point set to be the first of its kind anywhere in the world – capable of producing a Bugatti Chiron-esque 1,500-wheel horsepower and a soundtrack indicative of a 1990s, V10-engined Formula 1 car.

The excited, though still very nervous gentleman, sitting behind the wheel in this video is David Mazzei, founder of Alabama-based Mazzei Formula LLC. He’s also the company’s in-house test driver, and with the prototype into its final stages of development, he’s enjoying the ride. Fittingly, David actually studied to be a musician, so the F1 soundtrack was a key inspiration for this build. For this first on-road test however, the priority was simple: “get the car back in one piece, and make sure that everything feels good… it’s pretty nerve-wracking.”

Given the car beneath him, we can’t blame him one bit.

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1,500-Wheel Horsepower In A 2,400-Pound Car

The MF5 was first brought to light back in 2021, and is actually based on a lightweight kit car called the Superlite SL-C, built by the eponymous independent specifically for use both on-track and on the road. This starting point proved crucial for David, since it made customization easier with no body panels to design or mold. It was a cheaper way to go, too.

A body on frame build, the fiberglass bodywork – the front of which is reminiscent of Mazda’s 2007 Furai supercar concept – sits atop a purpose-built, super-rigid aluminum tubular monocoque. Double wishbones are mounted front and rear (the wheels at the other end are clad with Michelin slicks), a custom-built fuel tank is housed behind the cabin’s two bucket seats, and three radiators – one in each sidepod and a third under the front clamshell – are required. Altogether, the MF5 weighs just north of 2,400 pounds.

The BiletPro-built, mid-rear-mounted five-rotor engine, meanwhile, is fed by a massive G57 turbocharger, the turbine of which is said to be 20 percent larger than stock. Potential power is a truly insane 1,500 horsepower at the wheels – again, in a road-legal car that weighs less than an MX-5 Miata – all of which is sent to the ground through a six-speed, Holinger MXT paddle-shifted transmission. Though it’s not been fully tested yet, top speed should be well over 200 MPH. It’s worth noting this car has neither power steering nor power brakes. No wonder David looks nervous.

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Why A Five-Rotor Engine?

Simple. It’s all about that V10 F1 soundtrack.

Filmed and tested on public roads, David, obviously, is unable to bury the right pedal into the (presumably) very thinly-carpeted footwell, and sticks to local speed limits (that 1,500 WHP output, by the way, has been reined in to a ‘tamer’ 1,200). There’s no denying that the five-rotor soundtrack is truly reminiscent of a late 1990s / early 2000s Formula 1 V10 engine, even in the low revs.

Sadly, since this project was announced in 2021, David was beaten for the world’s first road-going five-rotor accolade by New Zealand’s professional drift athlete ‘Mad’ Mike Whiddett, who outfitted a Mazda 787D prototype – a tribute to the four-rotor-engined Mazda 787B that won Le Mans in 1991 – with a 3.3-liter 33B Wankel five-rotor as part of a four-year collaboration with Pulse Performance Race Engineering.

Source: Mazzei Formula