ARES launches with Wacky Races assembly

We’ll admit to being obsessed with Dany Bahar. You might remember him as the cheeky chap periodically in charge of Lotus, back when the British car company was in bloom and announcing new models every six minutes.

Then the GFC hit. The new models never materialised. And Bahar was summarily dismissed from Hethel under a bit of a cloud. The phrase “misappropriation of funds” was even bandied about at one point.

Anyway, a decade later, we find Bahar in Modena, Italy — the valley of supercars, if you will — where his new bespoke coachbuilding company, ARES Design, has just opened the doors on a brand new 18,000sq m design and manufacturing facility.

To celebrate the opening, ARES has shown publicly some of its one-off creations, from reimagined classic cars and armyspec off-roaders to less-thantastefully redesigned supercars.

The hero car appears to be a Bentley Mulsanne converted from a giant sedan into an equally-giant coupe. Strange things have also been done to its front end. Elsewhere, an ARES X-Raid (essentially a steroid-enhanced Mercedes-AMG G63) has seen the light of day, alongside a 1964 Corvette Stingray, which has been treated slightly more sympathetically with modern touches underneath its old school skin.

As with all Euro design houses, ARES looks to have its fair share of hits and misses on the books. But the fact Bahar has led it to the point where a new state-of-the-art facility is required suggests quite a few of the continent’s elite are keen on re-fettled hardware.

We’d love to see what ARES could do with a Lotus Exige . . .