(whooshing) (car engine revving) (tape rewinds) (car engine revving) - This is the Devel
Sixteen, and for years, we've been seeing this
supercar in pictures, on blogs, Instagram, Facebook, we've all heard the specs. 5,000 horsepower, 1.8
seconds zero to 60 time, capable of 350 miles per hour. We've even seen a few
videos of it rolling around. (car engine revving) Sounds pretty awesome, right? Well, if you ask me, it seems a little too awesome. (whooshing)
(gun cocking) It's pretty suss that
we've never seen this car actually do a pull. Is this car real, or is the Devel Sixteen just smoke and mirrors? What I found out is
actually (beep) bananas. (upbeat theme music) Here's thanks to Fanttik for
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save $15 off your purchase when you use the code, DONUTT8APEX. Now let's jump back to the show, you get it? Like, jump, nevermind. (light beeping) I want to start off this video
by saying that I'm a big fan of the idea behind this car. I mean, how can you not smile
when you hear 12.3 liter, quad-turbocharged, V16, 5,000 horsepower, 350 miles per hour? If those numbers don't get
you excited, you're a robot. The thing is, from all our research, everything that's come out
about this car is theoretical. We've yet to see what
this supposed supercar, nay, hypercar is capable of
doing in a real life test. And that's disappointing because it can honestly
be really, really cool. So why is it that eight years
after this car was announced people are still talking about it? (drums beating) Back in 2013, Dubai-based
car maker, Devel, announced at the Dubai
International Motor Show their plans to produce
a 16-cylinder roadster capable of 5,000 horsepower
with the intent to, quote, "break all world records". That's what you want
to do as a new company, you shoot for the freaking moon. It was also gonna be one
of the first cars designed and produced solely in
the United Arab Emirates, a place every other car
on the road is an exotic, but none of them are
really produced there. According to one of Devel's
developers, Rashid Al-Atari, the company had actually been working on the Sixteen secretly, since 2006. In his own words, quote,
"we keep it hush". Rashid also revealed at the unveiling that this wasn't the only
project Devel was working on, and the other project was, quote, "Much, much bigger than this one, you will not be disappointed." which is something I say
when I turn in a script that's not quite done yet, I really lean on James' improv skills. (screaming) - Never come back. (screaming) (gunshots)
(blows raspberry) - Hi, I'm James Pumpkin. - Breaker one nine,
there's some diesel bears hasslin' a chicken truck. - Hi.
- Hi. - Hi. (grunting) - Getting my seat belt. (farting) - Just frightened? - Don't do this again. - Always in the frightened zone. (laughing) - When the Devel Sixteen prototype was unveiled to the world, it made waves, but some waves broke
for the wrong reasons. The prototype was a little rough with unfinished and ill
fitting carbon fiber, hilariously over the top exhaust ports, and quilted leather seats
that were just, meh. Car Blog, Motor Authority, said
it looked like it was quote, "Hastily built in a back shed somewhere," and that's pretty harsh. But the looks weren't
the only thing the Devel was getting roasted for. People balked at the claim that the V16 was going to make 5,000
horsepower, I mean, how? To put that in perspective, the most powerful Formula One car ever made about 1,350 horsepower, and that was only during qualifying. If they ran that set up during
a race, it would explode. 5,000 seemed like such
an arbitrary number, and it was 4,000 horsepower more than any production car ever made, even if it did have 16 cylinders. But, Devel claimed they
were going to build an entirely new engine, which for an engine
with half the cylinders, would be a grandiose claim. Add to that the claim zero
to 60 time of 1.6 seconds, and a top speed of nearly
350 miles per hour, and it becomes literally unbelievable, not just hyperboly, but
a full-on nuthouse claim. First of all, where do you even drive
a car 350 miles per hour? The 5,000 horsepower
version of the Sixteen was only intended to be a track car, but name a track that you could even get
up to that speed on, aside from that crazy
testing strip that VW used for the Bugatti Chiron. Needless to say, there was a healthy amount of
skepticism in car enthusiasts, myself definitely included. But not even two years later, a video came out that put a
lot of that negativity to bed, nighty night, baby boy, I
hope you like turbo noises. (upbeat music)
(engine revving) In 2015, a few years after the Devel Sixteen prototype debuted, the company released a video
on their YouTube account that showed the mythical
V16 team doing a dyno pull, that's right, this was real. There it was with it's
full quad turbo glory silencing the naysayers. (engine revving) The engine in question was
a sort of Frankensteined LS, actually two LSs fused together by Michigan high-performance
engine builder, Steve Morris, and I gotta say this video
changed my mind a little bit. Steve Morris builds
around a hundred bespoke high performance engines a year
with (beep) a load of power, so much power, baby, that they
boast that they have a dyno that can read power values
over 4,500 horsepower. This is not your grand
pappy's dyno, that's for sure, unless your grandpa's is Steve Morris, in that case, sick. The engine Steve Morris
developed for the Devel was a 12.3 liter billet block machine out of a single hunk of metal. Each of the four turbos are
a massive 81 millimeters and made specifically for this engine. Actually, a lot of
components on this engine were made specifically for
this engine by Steve Morris. That means the headers, the block, the one piece crankshaft
and one piece camshaft, air intakes, et cetera. So yeah, when people say this thing is just two LSs bolted together, it's true that this engine
does use specific components from the LS, but that's
a gross understatement, and honestly, kind of a dis. The level of creativity and precision that went into making this bespoke engine is a monumental engineering achievement on the part of Steve Morris and his shop. And the proof can be seen in the video as the V16 teen spools up and hits an amazing 4,515 horsepower and 3,519 foot pounds of torque at 36 pounds of boost, good gracious. It actually made more power, but the dyno could only
measure up to 4,500 horsepower. So if the engine is real, and we've known this for six years now, why does the Devel Sixteen
still catch so much flak? Well, having a working
engine is one thing, but power is only as good as
the car that can harness it, and that's when things
get a little cloudy. The first production model debuted at the 2017 Dubai
International Motor Show. This time around, the model looked a lot more
refined than the concept car. The swooping lines and sloping tail were much more refined than the concept, and it actually looked like a fighter jet, which is what the
designers were inspired by. The over the top dual
exhaust was dialed back a bit and resembled more of
Pagani style exhausts than a plastic tumbler
from Batman rip off. The production model
does look pretty bad-ass, I have to admit. The interior was dialed back as well. The concept version had tons
of futuristic dials and gauges, racing seats with colorful
leather and ventilation rings, and even a leather lined floor. For the production model, everything is way more
sensible and minimalistic, and fits with other
modern supercar interiors. The only note I have for the interior is that the steering
wheel kinda looks weird. Everything else on the
Sixteen seems legitimate, it's a carbon fiber monocoque mounted on an aluminum chassis,
which is par for the course for supercars nowadays. It also has electronically
controlled suspension with three different modes
and varying ride heights, that's kind of what you want. The 5,000 horsepower
version of the Sixteen is actually just the top
trim level of the car meant for the track only, and it costs a staggering $2.2 million. The other tiers aren't nearly as crazy. The lowest trim level
offers a turbocharged LS V8 tuned to 1500 horsepower
and it costs $1.6 million. The next level up is
a street legal version of the turboed V16, but tuned
to make 3000 horsepower, this model goes for a relative
bargain at 1.8 million. Double the horsepower for only $200,000? Sign me up, it's like going to the movies and buying a small popcorn when you could be getting a
large for only 50 cents more, with refills included. In theory, this hypercar
checks all the boxes for being one of the most exciting
production cars ever built, but in practice, that's where
things start to fall apart. - This is the most insane
car I've ever seen. - [Nolan] The first
time we ever got to see the Devel Sixteen move under its own power was November 1st, 2018, when Supercar Blondie
became the first person, who didn't work for
Devel, to drive the thing. It was, for the most
part, a little uneventful. We got some cold starts. (horn honks)
(engine revving) We got some rolling footage, we got to see the interior, nice. But the problem for a lot of viewers is that we didn't get to
see those 5,000 buff horses unleashed on a Dubai highway. But as we'll learn later, there is a very good and
very valid reason for that. Instead of giving skeptics
a big old spoonful of shut the hell up juice,
the exclusive first drive only made the chorus
of haters sing louder. And just to be clear, none of this is Supercar Blondie's fault. If Devel gave us the
rights to the first drive, we would've jumped on that
opportunity in an instant, in fact, Devel, if you
want to send us a Sixteen, I'd love to drive it. That company got another
big marketing boost when it was reported
that Drizzy, AKA, Drake, ordered one of the first
Sixteens off the production line. But that's about all the
info there is about this and it really hasn't been verified. A Devel Sixteen did make a
cameo in the "I'm Upset" video, but it wasn't rolling, and
you can only see half the car for about one and a half seconds, which led to some commenters to theorize that the monumental insurance
costs for driving this car were too much for the Degrassi star. It was also reported that Snoop Dogg was in talks to buy one as well, but again, not a lot of
info, so, I'm not sure. (car engine revving) After almost a full decade
of teasing supercar fans, we have yet to see the Devel
Sixteen make it to production, so, will we ever? Surprisingly, it actually might. The Devel Sixteen was
supposed to go into production about a year after it debuted
at the 2017 Dubai Auto Show. It still hasn't, and we
haven't gotten a lot of updates from the company. Why? Why has the company
that claims to have made the fastest car in the world
been so slow to respond? Well, it goes without saying, well, making a completely
original hypercar from nothing is difficult. Us armchair engineers can comment all we want on social media
talking smack about this car, but what do we know really about designing a quad turbo-charged 16
cylinder track monster? I don't know anything. Many of the claims that Devel
is made about performance are actually backed up by science. The lead engineer on the project is an Italian name Paolo Garella,
and he seems really cool. You might've heard of some of the other projects he's
worked on, like the SCG 003, a 700 horsepower track toy that weighs just a few hundred
pounds more than a Miata, or the Apollo IE, a V12
beast of a supercar. Both of these cars are 100% real, and have been driven and tested, so why hasn't the
Sixteen come to fruition? Paolo loves a challenge, which is why he accepted the position as lead engineer on the Devel Sixteen. In an interview with Road
and Track, he said, quote, "I mean, to have the possibility to work on something like
this, it's really unique, but I guess I'm starting to
get a reputation among people for taking up crazy challenges." Many of the challenges that
the team has had to deal with during the development
of the car have to do with the insane forces a
car is under at high speeds. To get a car to travel
at 300 miles per hour, you need at least 1500 horsepower, but to get it to go any faster, you need exponentially more horsepower. We're talking 1,500 more horsepower to get it up to 350 miles per. Jeremiah did a really cool
bumper to bumper on this, check it out, it's about getting a car to go 1,000 miles per hour. It's a lot harder than it sounds. Actually, it sounds pretty hard. But even after you drop in a power plant that's able to get you
to 350 miles per hour, you're only halfway there. Devel engineers are struggling
to find a transmission that can handle all that torque. The transmission they're currently using on the lower trim levels results in a 500
horsepower mechanical loss. Also, fluid aerodynamics become crushing at speeds that high, and it's one thing that's
been a major headache in the development of the Devel Sixteen. Vortexes form underneath the
car that can destabilize it, air gets trapped towards the rear that doesn't dissipate fast enough. These are all things that
could tank the reputation of the Devel Sixteen if the
car goes into production before it's ready. On top of all that, you have to wonder if the
technology is already outdated. I mean, think about it, this car has essentially been
in development since 2006, that's 15 years. Whatever technology is in this car had to go multiple revisions
to remain state-of-the-art and maintain its edge
over modern supercars. The video game equivalent
of the Devel Sixteen is Cyberpunk 2077. That game was in
development for nine years and when it finally came out, it was pretty disappointing
to say the least. Now, imagine if you spent $2.2 million on your copy of Cyberpunk, try getting that refund back. The bar is extra high, not
only because of the claims that Devel is putting
out about their hypercar, but also because everyone's
been anticipating this car for so long. The hype surrounding this
car has gotten so out of hand that it eclipses the actual
car it's going to be. I'm not sure the Devel Sixteen will actually make it to production, but if it does, I'm sure
some of those claims will be dialed back just a little bit. It's also pretty telling that the company has already announced a second model before the first one has
rolled off the production line. (car engine revving) That's right, the Devel Sixty
is a six by six off-road brute powered by a 6.7 liter turbo diesel V8. But unlike the Sixteen, this warthog has already been tested, and it smoked them Mercedes
AM GT in a drag race. (car engine revving) Here that turbo diesel
peel out in third gear? Maybe I should start believing the hype. Thank you very much for
watching Wheelhouse, I've been wanting to talk about this car for a long, long time, and I honestly hope it works out for 'em. I want to believe that
something like the Sixteen is possible, that's exciting to me. If you haven't seen our video
on the Lykan HyperSport, another crazy supercar from the UAE, click the link right there. Check out the D-list right here. Follow Donut on all
social media @donutmedia. Follow me if you want @nolanjsykes, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter,
it's all there for you. Be kind, I will see you next week.
Will tell you when I can afford one
whatever happened to Devel? Did they ever make the car?