For several years, Smudo, the front man of German Hip-Hop band ‘Die Fantastischen Vier’, has made the headlines not only with his music alone but also as motor racer. For quite a while now, the 40-year old has been a constant on the grid of both the rich in tradition Nürburgring 24-Hour Race and the BFGoodrich Endurance Championship Nürburgring. In addition to the motor-racing successes the rapper and his team celebrate regularly, Smudo also attracts a lot of attention with his engagement for the environment. His motto: motor racing also has to be ecologically sensitive and sustainable.
Since 2003, he raced bio-diesel powered cars, thus being one of the pioneers of ecological motor racing – and in the past season, he and his Team Principal, former DTM driver Thomas von Löwis of Menar, took green motor racing even a step further. In their project that currently is unique on our planet, the body of the car was manufactured nearly solely from bio-composite materials.
“From the motor-racing point of view, the use of bio materials represents neither an advantage nor a disadvantage. And that’s exactly our message. We want to demonstrate what also could be done today when it comes to our cars for the day-to-day traffic,” underlines Smudo who again is going to race an all new bio-concept vehicle, in 2009. “In the off-season, we are working on the enhancement of our project – in cooperation with a major European car manufacturer,” reveals Team Principal Thomas von Löwis. The interest of the automotive industry is easy to understand as the bio-composite materials possess a lot of potential for the future. After all, they could help to reduce the weight of our cars and save petrol, this way.
