Angad Paul, the 45-year-old CEO of Caparo, was found dead in London last week, The Guardian reports. Having fallen from his eighth-story apartment in what some are alleging was a suicide, he leaves behind a steel company in a dire financial situation and an outrageous and ambitious supercar project that now seems unlikely to continue.

The Caparo T1 first debuted in Monaco in 2006. Conceived as the ultimate Formula 1-inspired road car, it packed a 575-hp, 3.5-liter V8 that revved past 10,000 RPM in a carbon-fiber, two-seat chassis that weighed barely more than 1000 lbs. With F1-style aerodynamics that generated 1500 lbs of downforce at 150 mph, a 0-60 sprint under 2.5 seconds, and up to 3g of grip, the T1 promised to be the ultimate no-compromises street-legal supercar. Engineered by McLaren F1 veterans Ben Scott-Geddes and Graham Halstead, it had the bona-fides to be the best.

But nearly from the start, the Caparo T1 had issues. A T1 being tested by Jason Plato for the British TV show Fifth Gear caught fire at speed; a Caparo's throttle stuck open at the Goodwood Festival of Speed; a major suspension failure was reported during testing by a Dutch journalist.

And then there was Jeremy Clarkson's T1 test for Top Gear. The cheeky presenter drew exaggerated attention to the apparent danger of the car, with gratuitous highlighting of the numerous fire and safety crew present for the test—before a floor panel detached from the car as it lapped the Top Gear track. Eventually, the car set an astonishing 1:10.6 lap time, far outpacing the then-champion Koenigsegg CXX; but it was disqualified for being too low to cross a speed bump.

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Things didn't get much better for the Caparo project after that. Despite an intended production volume of 25 cars per year, only 15 examples of the T1 were sold by 2012.

Caparo was a newcomer to the supercar business. The company, founded by Angad Paul's father, was mainly involved in the steel industry. When Angad took over the company, he oversaw offshoots into other businesses—manufacturing, automotive components, the T1 project, and investments in hotels, design, and the film industry—but cheap imported steel from China, high energy prices, and the global economic climate conspired to bring the once-great company into financial turmoil. Up to 450 jobs had been cut, with another 1200 in jeopardy, and the company had entered creditor-controlled administration when Paul's body was found last week.

Angad Paul leaves behind his wife, Michele, and two children.

via Autoblog

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