Rossa is a mid-engine, rear-wheel drive supercar built on a carbon fiber monocoque body. The car is equipped with a 5.2-liter V10 engine that develops 680 horsepower. The engine works with a robotic transmission, the estimated maximum speed is 380 km / h, acceleration to the first “hundred” should take no more than 3.2 seconds. The car was built with the aim of participating in Russian and international competitions in the GT2 and GT3 classes.
What does Marussia have to do with it?
Creator and project manager Roman Rusinov tells socialbites.ca that it is wrong to compare Rossa projects with Marussia. Some people try to draw such parallels because Marussia was a high-profile project and many remember it as the first attempt to create a supercar in Russia, but he himself says that these cars are different in concept.
“Let’s even consider the chassis of the car: the Marussia’s is aluminum, the Rossa’s is carbon fibre.
The components of the machine and most importantly their layout are completely different. Let’s not forget that technology has advanced a lot. Therefore, if we compare the Rossa with other cars, then at least we come across cars with carbon monocoque cars,” explains the driver.
Rusinov emphasizes that the presented car is a concept car and there are no plans for mass production yet, and this is another difference from the Marussia project.
“Creating the concept car allowed us to carry out an extensive testing program and collect important information. This is the first stage. It is finished and I am happy with the result. Now we are already in the second stage – the creation of a racing car.
And now theoretically a serial version based on it could be created, but I repeat once again, there are no such plans at the moment.
“We can only talk about this after we produce a GT2/GT3 racing car that will be successful in competitions,” states the athlete.
As Rusinov said, throughout his career he competed in cars produced, as a rule, in Europe (Lamborghini, Audi, Oreca, Nissan and Ligier) and participated in the process of their improvement. He emphasized that now the driver is focused on competing in Russian competitions and it makes sense to do this with his own car.
Rossa was designed by Ivan Borisov, who previously worked for Aurus, Volgabus and Marussia, as well as Vladimir Plekhanov, who worked on the body and interior for Marussia, Lada Vesta and XRay.
According to Rusinov, the cost of the Rossa race will be comparable to the cost of its rivals. The driver did not disclose the estimated price of the super road car and the investors of the Rossa project.
How many Russians are in Rossa?
The development of the Rossa supercar was supervised by Igor Ermilin, who in the past was chief designer of Marussia on the bankrupt project of showman, singer and racing driver Nikolai Fomenko. As Ermilin told socialbites.ca, the car was initially developed for a private customer. Then the idea of creating a big project came to the customer’s mind and attracted the attention of Roman Rusinov at the stage when the concept car was ready for the first tests.
Russinov also explained to socialbites.ca that the idea of u200bu200bthe Rossa project and the creation of the brand was initiated by him, after which he formed a new team of Russian specialists, who continued to develop the concept car and began to create it. a racing car.
The Rossa design uses many Russian-made components. Ermilin explains that it is illogical and stupid to create a car of this level using only one country’s component base.
“When new projects emerge, there is distrust towards them in our society. The continuity of the idea was to show that this wasn’t done in a vacuum. That’s why some elements of the Marussia that still seem relevant have remained in the Rossa design,” says the designer.
The Rossa design uses foreign AP Racing brakes, KW shock absorbers, an engine and transmission with a control unit, as well as a steering wheel.
Everything else was developed, invented and produced in Russia – these are the monocoque, body elements, electronics, wheel units, wheels, joints, suspension, etc., engineer lists. The key experts working on Rossa, in addition to Ermilin, were Dmitry Krylov, who was responsible for design, and Pavel Akimochkin, who handled development and engineering. All of them had previously worked at Marussia.
Already the car can move on public roads without any problems, the car was tested at the Dmitrovsky training ground,
Shared by Ermilin. However, in order for Rossa to hit the roads legally, the car must be certified and the supercar design for mass production must be redesigned, taking into account some standards. The designer said that initially the car was created for driving in comfortable conditions on race tracks – the supercar has air conditioning and a multimedia system, he said.
“There are very strict certification requirements at the moment and it is still unclear how some things will be tested; this could be one of the obstacles during certification. The car was a track car designed for a specific person, some nuances were not taken into account to pass the appropriate checks and this study was not originally designed.” he states.
Having prepared a prototype of the car, Ermilin will no longer be involved in the development of Rossa and can act as a consultant accordingly.
“Marussia had no fault; It was an unfinished product due to various reasons, the development and strategy of the company. It was more of a PR project.
Marussia had almost no full road tests. Ten years passed between my departure from the company and my start working at Rossa in 2020, and the knowledge, experience and styling ideas accumulated during this time were embodied in the new car. “This is the realization of this kind of supercar vision,” added the engineer.
drilling name
Automotive experts have different assessments about the future of the new Russian supercar. Independent automotive industry consultant Sergei Burgazliev warns that it is very difficult to organize the production and production of supercars on your own without the support of a major state actor in Russia.
“It is advisable to find a partner like Gazprom in the person of the auto entity Aurus (state company). plans Buy shares of Aurus – “socialbites.ca”) and offer your development to them.
In this case, they have a chance; management may drag this story under the premium Russian sports car Aurus-Rossa. But even in this case there is no need to talk about any mass production yet. They certainly will not distort this story on their own, at least under the current conditions.” Burgazliev expressed his doubts.
Maxim Kadakov, editor-in-chief of Za Rulem magazine, evaluated the emergence of the Rossa brand in Russia positively and underlined the sound name and the car worth attention. If the Rossa brand can be introduced and these cars win the racing championship in their class or the 24 Hours of Le Mans marathon, then they will become famous and recognized. He argues that in this case the brand can be successfully developed, sold or cooperated, for example, with Chinese manufacturers.
“It is clear how this car will participate in track races in Russia and other countries, including Le Mans.”
If you have the finance you can win races with a car like this.
“It is much more difficult to appear on public roads, because you have to work on certification, and this is a whole bunch of problems, as well as meeting customer requests, because the car must be comfortable to drive,” he continues.
Even if five Rossa cars are ordered a year in different countries, deliveries will be planned years in advance. Kadakov notes that before, even Ferrari or Lamborghini produced dozens and hundreds of models.
“There are people buying the Aurus, not because they can’t afford a Rolls-Royce. They already have it. They buy it because it’s interesting, it’s a way to support the Russian auto industry. “If we assume that tomorrow there will be a road version of the Rossa that you can drive, like Ferrari or Lamborghini, then a dozen cars a year will be sold in Russia, and this is not bad at all,” says the auto expert.