Free Radicals

When Radical first put a superbike engine in the back of a pretty Sports Prototype 25 years ago, at first glance there was little actually radical about it. Motorcycle-engine racecars had already been around for decades. In the 1950s, they were the lifeblood of grass roots British motorsport in the then Formula 3, and there had been many variations on the theme, few of which were particularly successful.

But where Radical got it so right was in its execution. It was the engineering, rather than the concept, that made the car work, and its focus on performance, useability and aesthetics was, indeed, quite radical.

Consequently, that car, and the many that followed it, proved hugely popular. To the point that today, the Peterborough UKbased company is the second largest racecar producer in the world, beaten only by Porsche Motorsport. It has sold over 2800 cars since that first Radical Clubsport burst on to the UK race scene.

Yet despite all this, the company has not, until recently, been quite as good at making money as it is at making cars.

‘Last year [2021] was the first year in almost a decade that we actually made a profit,’ says Joe Anwyll, CEO of Radical Sportscars. ‘It marked the end of [our] turnaround and was the first step in the journey of securing Radical’s long-term future.’

Last year also saw a record 176 cars roll out of the doors of Radical’s factory, its largest ever annual output of vehicles.

All change

This success has largely come about due to a change at the top. A new management team, led by Anwyll, was installed in 2016, and other new faces joined the board in 2021,