A single-seater supercar for the road

Briggs Automotive Company (BAC) is the vision of two British brothers, Neill and Ian Briggs, who wanted to provide the world with a road vehicle that offers the most authentic and pure driving experience – as close as it gets to a Formula 1 car for the road.

And so the BAC Mono was born. An outlandish road-legal single-seater weighing just 580kg with a top speed of 273kph, which gets to 100kph from zero in just 2.7 seconds. The car has received a number of accolades from some of the top motoring magazines all over the world – including Top Gear and Autocar – and it utilises cutting-edge technology, including hybrid carbon-composite wheels. The result is like nothing else on earth, with Mono incorporating the sort of adjustability that's more closely associated with the race track than the road. Wing angles, downforce, damping… everything can be adjusted to ensure the perfect set-up for every driver.

When they first drove the car, Autocar wrote: “Superlatives get wheeled out for the latest supercars, but the rapier-like creation before you offers an experience so indisputably different to the norm it's difficult to know where to begin.”

If there's one word than sums the Mono, it's ‘uncompromising'. This relentless quest for perfection is why BAC spoke to Pirelli when it was looking for exactly the right tyres to get the very most out of this specialist car. It took Pirelli 18 months to create bespoke tyres for the BAC Mono, using a combination of on-track and laboratory testing. Well-known GT driver Oliver Webb was one of the test pilots, taking the Mono to its limits in order to assess the performance envelope that needed to be covered by the new tyres. One of the circuits used was Anglesey in north Wales: a sweeping rollercoaster of a track that overlooks the Atlantic ocean, where bad weather is a frequent occurrence.

When on the road, the BAC Mono will use the P Zero Trofeo R: a road-legal motorsport tyre that reacts with precision and provides high levels of grip in all conditions, utilising cutting-edge technology and bespoke compounds. And for those looking to push the limits on track, bespoke slick and wet tyres have also been created: the P Zero DS slick and WS wet. That famous Welsh weather in Anglesey came in handy…

The tyres were all designed and constructed for Mono to ensure the ultimate driving experience on both the road and track. This is the ‘perfect fit' strategy, where Pirelli works in partnership with manufacturers to create tyres that are purpose-made for each model, enhancing its characteristics and delivering the best performance, handling and safety. These tyres carry special markings on the sidewalls, and the Trofeo R will be marked with a specific symbol instantly recognisable to owners: denoting that the tyre has been developed specifically for the BAC Mono.

The 2019 car and new P Zero tyres were revealed at Autosport International, which marks the start of the motorsport season in the UK and is attended by more than 95,000 people. Pirelli has been exhibiting there since 1991, with a variety of cars and stars from Formula 1 to historics. But it's been the first time – as far as we know – that a new partnership agreement with a manufacturer has been announced there. And it's one that's going to put a smile on many people's faces.