Marussia B2

What the Marussia B2 is

The Marussia B2 is the second road car of Marussia Motors, a small-volume sports car maker led by its president, the racing driver Nikolai Fomenko, with co-founders Andrey Cheglakov and Libor Haluza. The company was set up in 2007 and launched its first model, the B1, in December 2008.

The B2 made its debut at the International Motor Show (IAA) in Frankfurt in September 2009. Marussia billed it as the first supercar from its home country, a claim repeated in English-language coverage, though it is a marketing label rather than a verified record. Auto Revue reports that two B2s appeared alongside two B1s at Top Marques Monaco in 2010, and that the brand opened a showroom in Monaco in May 2012.

For the wider background, see the history of Marussia Motors, which covers the company from its founding to the F1 years.

Marussia B1 and B2: what differs

The B1 and B2 are technically similar cars that differ mainly in design. They share the mid-engine layout, the chassis concept and the engine range. The B2 has a more aggressive, angular front end whose shapes echo the "M" of the Marussia logo, while the B1 is the softer-looking of the two. Both sit in the Marussia model range, which did not grow beyond these two coupés and an SUV prototype.

Engines, gearbox and performance

The B2 was offered with three V6 engines: one naturally aspirated 3.5-litre unit and a Cosworth 2.8-litre twin-turbo in two states of tune. All three sit behind the cabin and drive the rear wheels through a six-speed automatic with paddle shifters. A manual gearbox was reported to be in development but does not appear in any confirmed specification.

Cosworth, the British engine specialist, supplied the turbocharged V6. One English Wikipedia article says the engine came from Opel. The German article, GTspirit and the Czech magazine Auto Revue all name Cosworth, so the Opel line is best treated as an error.

The 309 kW (420 PS) car reaches 100 km/h from rest in 3.8 seconds, a figure given by both Auto Revue and Wikipedia. A quicker 3.2 seconds also circulates online, but it conflicts with these sources and is not used here. Top speed is less certain. Auto Revue says only "over 250 km/h" (155 mph), while other sources quote 305 to 310 km/h.

The engines run on 95-octane petrol, and the fuel tank is usually quoted at 80 L (21.1 US gal). No official fuel consumption figure from Marussia has surfaced in reputable sources.

Chassis, body and dimensions

The B2 is built around an aluminium space frame (sometimes described as a semi-monocoque) clad in composite, carbon-fibre body panels. That construction explains the low kerb weight of about 1,100 kg (2,425 lb). An 850 kg figure that circulates on older pages, including the previous version of this one, is not supported by any source we checked.

The car is wide and low. Its width is about 2.0 m (78.7 in), and the wheelbase is about 2,680 mm (105.5 in). Height is usually quoted at 1,100–1,130 mm (43.3–44.5 in). Overall length is a problem: Auto Revue gives 4,465 mm, while Wikipedia and other sources give 4,635 mm, and there is no factory data sheet to settle it.

Running gear details come mainly from Auto Revue. It describes 20-inch Pirelli tyres, 245/35 at the front and 285/35 at the rear, and 356 mm (14.0 in) ventilated discs with four-piston calipers. The pushrod suspension uses KW hardware with hydraulic ride-height adjustment, useful on a car this low. The same magazine reports that the B2 was tested on track at Paul Ricard in France.

Key specifications (Cosworth 309 kW version)

Production plans, price and the end of Marussia Motors

Marussia's production plans were ambitious. Reported targets were 2,999 units for the B1 and about 3,500 cars for the series as a whole, and a first run of 500 B2s was announced. Some reports at the time said the 500 cars had all been sold, but that claim was not verified.

The Valmet deal in Finland

At the Geneva Motor Show in March 2012, Marussia announced that Valmet Automotive would engineer and build the B2 at its plant in Uusikaupunki, Finland. The plan was for "several hundred units a year", starting at the end of 2012 or in 2013. The price at the time was about €100,000, as quoted in March 2012. Valmet was reportedly also to build the Marussia F2, an SUV prototype first shown on 2 May 2010, with 300 units planned for 2012.

Why the B2 did not reach series production

In February 2014, Auto Revue could still give no start date for production. Autoevolution states that the car never reached series production because homologation outside its home country was not completed. How many B2s were actually built is unknown: the totals quoted online disagree and none is backed by company records, so this page does not give one.

On 9 April 2014 it was reported that Marussia Motors had been shut down and its staff moved to a government-run technical institute. That ended the B2 project.

The Marussia F1 team is a separate story. Marussia Motors took a majority stake in Virgin Racing in late 2010, and the team raced as Marussia F1 from 2012 to 2014. By April 2014 it was controlled by Marussia Communications Ltd, independent of the car maker, and it ceased trading on 7 November 2014.

Legacy, video games and contemporaries

Many people know the B2 from video games. It appears in Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2012), Need for Speed Rivals (2013), Asphalt 8: Airborne (2013) and Driveclub (2014), where it was a cover car.

Among real cars, the B2 belongs with the small-volume supercars and sports cars launched by new or niche makers in the same period. The Artega GT from Germany, the Dutch Spyker C8 Aileron and the KTM X-Bow from Austria came from similarly small makers. The McLaren MP4-12C shows the other route of the same years: a new supercar backed by an established racing company.

What the B2 leaves behind is an unusual case. A start-up with a racing-driver founder commissioned Cosworth engines, signed a contract with an established Finnish manufacturer and even bought into Formula One, yet its road car stayed a show-and-prototype project.