Are six wheels better than four? Aiming to answer that question is the Covini C3A, the world’s only six-wheeled production car.
Built by a small independent Italian firm named after its founder, Ferruccio Covini, and a long time in the making, it was inspired by the 1976 Tyrrell P34 Formula One car which had two pairs of small front wheels.
The theory was that these smaller wheels improved braking and front grip thanks to the additional contact patches.
It appeared the hypothesis worked. Driven by South Africa’s Jody Scheckter, the Tyrrell went on to achieve eight second-place podiums and won the Swedish Grand Prix in its debut season, but despite this initial success the project was shelved after only two seasons because of Goodyear’s failure to continue development on the 10” front tyres.
Ferruccio Covini first proposed his six-wheeler road car project in the 1970s but after long delays due to technical problems, it was only at the 2004 Geneva motor show that his prototype C6W (Covini 6 Wheeler) finally made its public debut.
BIGGER TYRE CONTACT PATCH
The two-seater sports coupé was, like the F1 Tyrrell, built with improved braking, cornering grip and directional stability in mind. The car wears four 15” alloys with 205/45 tyres on the front and 20” rims with 345/25s at the rear.
Ferruccio reckons that with four front tyres, all of which do the steering, there’s less chance of loss of control due to one front tyre deflating as well as less risk of aquaplaning due to the first front axle clearing the road for the second one. Having six wheels instead of four also theoretically improves braking because there’s a bigger tyre contact patch, and because there’s an additional set of discs and pads at the front.
The design is said to produce inherently less understeer and thus better cornering speeds than conventional four-wheeler designs, while the suspension produces less turbulence from potholes and bumps in the road because of the increased surface area.
MORE TYRES, BRAKE PADS AND SUSPENSION COMPONENTS TO REPLACE
However, the disadvantages of having additional front wheels means more tyres, brake pads, and wearable front suspension components to maintain, as well as the possibility of increased oversteer due to there being less grip at the rear – especially since the car is rear-wheel driven.
The Covini, which has now been renamed the C3A (Covini 3-Axis), has a tubular-steel chassis with a mixed fibreglass and Carbon-fibre body and a retractable plastic hardtop.
The hybrid car is powered by a mid-mounted Audi 4.2-litre V8 engine paired with an electric motor, giving it a theoretical top speed of about 300km/h.
A handful of other six-wheeled road cars have made their appearance since the seventies but they’ve all been prototypes, and the Covini is the first which will make it into production, albeit in very low volumes, built to order to individual requirements.
SHAKING UP BOXED-IN THINKING
No official production date has yet been set, and neither has a price tag.
The obvious question is: if six wheels are better than four, why have no major car firms produced such cars yet?
Does the Covini represent a brave and ingenious idea that shakes up the boxed-in thinking of a conservative motor industry, or the answer to a question nobody has asked?
We’ll have to wait before we get behind the wheel of one of these creations to find out.