Random: Horse Goes Racing In Brazil

Welcome to Random, a series at Car Throttle where we bring you the car stories nobody looks for, but turn out to be oddly interesting

A horse is going racing in Brazil. Sorry, what do you mean I need to cover that story? We’re a car website, we don’t deal with anim… oh. Horse.

Yes, Horse is going racing in Brazil. This time, it’s actually relevant to what we do here.

Horse, in case you’re not familiar, is a joint venture between French giants Renault and Chinese giants Geely in a bid to make global engine giants. So far, it’s doing a pretty remarkable job of making a name for itself, with Horses finding ways into production Dacias, offering a hybrid powertrain that can be retrofitted to electric car platforms and even seeing use in a Caterham racing series.

Its next motorsport venture will be in the wonderful world of pick-up truck racing, with a newly-formed series starting in Brazil in 2027. Little has been confirmed about the details of the cars yet, but the whole field is to use a 1.3-litre engine supplied by Horse.

This will be built locally in Curitiba, with the turbocharged four-cylinder engine being a development of the Horse H13, the same on Caterham will run in its Academy series from next year.

It’ll run with a difference, though, with this spec of the H13 running on ethanol rather than traditional pump fuel, which is said to reduce emissions by 70 per cent.

While that may seem an unusual fuel choice for such an engine to our European minds, Brazil is a global powerhouse when it comes to ethanol production, and the R&D Horse can learn from the series will likely be vital for road cars in the market.

Excuse me while I go breathe a sigh of relief, realising I don’t need to suddenly become an expert in horse racing.