Westfield Is Making A New Sports Car That Isn't A Lotus 7 Clone

Up until now, there’s been a Lotus 7 kind of theme to the cars produced by Westfield. Save for a few Radical-like bike-engined track day specials, Lotus 7-inspired sports cars have been the order of the day for the British company, but that’s all set to change thanks to the new GTM.

So far, Westfield hasn’t revealed a great deal. The GTM name comes from the kit car manufacturer Westfield acquired in 2007, but there isn’t even a design sketch available yet. A 252bp Ford Ecoboost engine - currently used by Westfield in the Sport 250 (above) - will sit in the car’s space frame chassis, and a sub-1000kg weight figure is being targeted. There’ll be coupe and convertible versions, and production is set to begin in 2018.

So far, so predictable, but there are also plans for a hybrid version, and an all-electric car with a 200 mile range. Sounds awfully complicated for a small, niche manufacturer. But there should be plenty of money in place to get the project moving, and from an unusual source at that: autonomous ‘pod’ vehicles.

These little capsules are often used as transport solutions in controlled environments (airports, for instance), and are in high demand. Westfield Autonomous Vehicles - a subsidiary of the Westfield Technology Group that also owns the sports car business - has already made 20,000 of the things for customers around the world, and the market is expected to grow dramatically.

So, what we have here is a company profiting and staying relevant via the rise of autonomy, while still making bonkers, lightweight sports cars. That sounds like something we can get behind.