Faced with a daunting construction workload, 1,700 horses are something Mario Kleff’s Wandeegroup could probably do with right now, and 1,700 horses are exactly what Mario is about to get – in the shape of a monster, custom-built engine more than twice as powerful as a Formula One Grand Prix car.
The engine, built by engineering specialists, will be published internationally as a new engine development. It will arrive in Thailand in the next few weeks and will become the power plant of Thailand’s – and possibly one of the world’s – fastest cars licensed for road use, designed from scratch by Mario himself.
The computer-generated 3-D design on the left, produced by the Wandeegroup, shows just how massive this 1,700 horsepower motor is.
“Although 1,700 horses might come in useful to me right now, I’m going to have to settle for 50 to 100 more people in order to complete our busy construction programme,” Mario said with a wry grin.

Early start
The increase in workload has been caused by an earlier-than-expected start to the construction of Club Royal Condominiums in Wong-Amat. Wandeegroup has been contracted to design and build the Bt 700m baht, six-building complex by Heights Holdings.
Work on the 450 units on five rai of land was scheduled to start in August or September but was brought forward to mid-July.
“The skeleton of the first building should be completed at the end of this year or early in the new year,” said Mario. “Although the six buildings will all have the same external appearance, they feature three very different engineering solutions. The first building will be concrete, but future ones will be either steel or modular in their construction.
“What differentiates this project is the extremely large spans incorporated in the construction of four of the buildings, from a minimum of 25 metres from column to column to a maximum of 40 metres. Of course, steel spans of that size are just not available in Thailand, so we have to make them specially. These are certainly the largest spans in residential building use in Thailand and I haven’t seen anything larger in a condominium project anywhere else in Asia.”

Track record
During the past two years, architect Mario Kleff has delivered more than 30 designs for eight-storey buildings, four high-rise towers and more than 15 luxury villas across Thailand. With work now under way on the Club Royal Condominiums and new construction sites in the pipeline in addition to several other ongoing projects across Pattaya, his Wandeegroup, like his new engine, needs to be ‘supercharged’, as he put it.
“That means I am going to need up to 100 more workers to supplement the 150 we already have on our construction projects,” he said.
“Just like my new engine, our construction schedule needs to be well fuelled and have top quality working parts in order to get up to the required speed quickly.”
And with his new engine capable of powering his unique supercar to speeds in excess of 400 kilometres an hour, you can bet his foot will be on the accelerator of the Wandeegroup, too, as it powers into its hectic construction programme. Ω