FX.co ★ Unique Russian sports car Marussia B1
Unique Russian sports car Marussia B1
Marussia В1 is the first car of the Russian company Marussia Motors. This is the premium sports car, produced in 2008. There were made only 2999 B1s. Now, for example, one of these cars is in the private collection.
The chassis is an aluminium semi-monocoque tub, to which are attached front and rear tubular spaceframes.
The six-speed automatic gearbox was produced by the company Aisin. The base engine is a 3.5-litre naturally aspirated V6 producing 300bhp and 302lb ft. It was borrowed from Nissan.
It took a lot of time to find the brakes for Marussia B1. In the beginning, the Wilwood brakes were installed. When the company Continental joined the working process, it insisted on a replacement. In the end, the engineers chose the Alcon products.
A similar thing happened with the choice of suspension. On the first prototypes the St. Petersburg's shock absorbers Plaza were installed, which later were replaced by KW struts.
The design of the wheel disks was developed in Asia, and the brakes with Marussia engraving were made by various companies for different prototypes.
However, the project lacked the most important thing - a real car that could be pursued in the broader market. Even when the staff of the company amounted to almost 400 people, Marussia Motors was more like a coachbuilder, which learns from its mistakes to make acting concept cars, than full-fledged production.