Intense Emotion
It was commissioned by a Hong Kong businessman wanting to create something “memorable”. It was penned by a 27-year old Chinese designer with a Batman obsession. It was created in Italy and has Maranello-derived power under the hood, but is assembled in the heart of Germany’s performance car industry. And while it is named after a Greek god, it sports Italian nomenclature.
That’s a lot of emotion right there. Intense, like the car. You see, the Apollo Intensa Emozione was born out of passion for a brand on the brink of ruin. As such, it is the first new product in 14 years from a company that once claimed the fastest time for a production road car around Nürburgring’s Nordschleife.
It all happened around four years ago when Norman Choi, an investor from Hong Kong, was looking for an opportunity to establish “something that will never be forgotten” – and decided to buy out the bankrupt German specialist car company Gumpert.
With Choi at the helm, the company that gave the world the Apollo was renamed
and rejuvenated. Within less than two years the Arrow concept, first shown at the Geneva Motor Show in 2016, was completely transformed into a hypercar that pushes the boundaries of design and technology to the limit.
In order to do this, an all-carbon chassis and monocoque, with carbonfibre front and rear subframes and crash structures, was developed in Italy by Paulo Garella. It was integrated into the futuristic design by young Joe Wong – who had been ostensibly inspired by raptors, insects and marine animals, and sharks in particular.
Wong’s ideas were captured by 28-year-old CAD (computer-aided design) master Jakub Jodlowski. This brought some semblance of order to the myriad of interwoven surfaces and surfeit of winglets and aero appendages, yet emphasised the new Apollo’s bat-like appearance – making it stand out, as its styling is unlike any other sports cars.
It took a master in composite materials, based in Italy, to turn the 3D images from Judlowski’s computer into reality. And with the carbon structure sorted, the engineers could start their work in honing the car for production.
Italian Power, German Engineering
The lightweight chassis – which also includes high-strength steel, aluminium and titanium components – weighs only 105 kg, yet it is so strong it conforms to FIA LMP2 racing-car safety standards. It is built by Capricorn Group in Dusseldorf, the same outfit which built the carbon tubs for the Porsche 919 LMP1 hybrid race car.
Changing from a twin-turbo V8 to a normally aspirated V12 engine – a bit ironic, given Apollo’s ties with HWA AG, a tuning and racing team spun-off from Mercedes-benz tuner AMG – presented some packaging challenges, as did fitting a 100-litre fuel cell without compromising the car’s balance.
The Ferrari F12-derived, 6.3-litre V12 engine, further developed by Autotecnica Motori and HWA AG, delivers a screaming 582 kw and 760 Nm of torque. All that power is channelled to the huge rear tyres via a paddle-shiftoperated 6-speed Hewland sequential ’box (a dual-clutch auto transmission is apparently in the works) and a Pankl Racing Systems differential.
With this type of power and weighing only 1,250 kg, the Intensa Emozione