[REVIEW] Frem Automotive - a national supercar - AllCarIndex
Lebanon is a country better know for militaristic unrest but despite the awkward conditions the passionate automotive enthusiast from this country is chasing his dream to put the first Lebanese car into production. A young design student named David Frem is not thinking about the common passenger automobiles. His core objective is to manufacture national supercars!
The relization of this idea started in August, 2005 together with the development of the first-ever car built in Lebanon. It took three years to design and build the car which was named the Frem F1.
Featuring a specially-made chassis, the F1 was equipped with a VW 2.0-liter engine together with Audi gearbox. A garage-built one-of-a-kind example cannot be awarded for the highest quality standards, but considering a poor financial backing and not the best manufacturing conditions the efforts and determination are worth the highest respect. The car is 5 meters long, 2 meters wide and 1.1 meters tall. However, the F1 is getting an update on its powertrain, interior and exterior designs.
At this point, after the premiere of the car in Lebanon, which caused a national acclaim, the story of the project could have ended. Nevertheless, a sucessfull David Frem's participation at the Michelin Challenge Design 2009 councours was the additional force which encouraged the further development of the project. A 1:4 bright red scale model of the supercoupe named Frem FR1 was among the winners of the contest. Hence, the following months were devoted for a production of the second prototype.
A new two-seater white-painted speedster was unveiled for people of Beirut on the 14th of December, 2010. Being much shorter (4300 mm) and less wider (1940 mm) than the F1, the car respectivelly named Beirut Edition is powered by a Chevrolet 5.6-liter engine. This car may probably remain a one-off example just like its predecessor the F1, but as Mr. Frem told us, these two cars are the prototypes of the production car currently named the SSS and were built to demonstrate the skills and possibilities of limited budget car manufacturing.
This new automobile will feature such advanced and exotic technical decisions like Magnetic Ride Control for the suspension, brake system developed by Brembo (including an electric parking brake) and tires specially manufactured by Michelin. Under the hood, the SSS will have a GM's LSA 6.2-liter supercharged V8 engine (also found on Cadillac CTS-V and a new Chevrolet Camaro ZL1) developing 556 hp 747 Nm of torque respectivelly. This should enable the car to hit the 100km/h mark in 3.2 seconds. A massive amount of power will be transmitted to the wheels via a Tremec TR6060 six-speed manual dual-clutch or a Hydra-Matic 6L90 six-speed automatic gearbox with paddle-shift control.
The world premiere of the SSS will take a place at Salon Prive London sometime in 2012 or 2013. David Frem intends to build no more than 100 examples of the Lebanese supercar whose estimated price tag will be between 650-700.000 USD.
Stay tuned for further details!
source: David Frem - Frem Automotive