Startup pitches V12 GP1 as 'analogue' revival
6.6-litre manual, carbon tubbed, naturally aspirated - and set to be built in Britain
All sounds a bit too good to be true, right? A new British-built supercar with a naturally aspirated V12 engine (and no other power source in sight), a manual gearbox, carbon tub, and design straight from a bedroom wall poster. Heaven knows there have been more than a few cars claiming to be the next big supercar thing over the years (a lot of them from the UK) which haven’t amounted to very much. So we have to approach the Garagisti & Co. GP1 with obvious caution. But there are reasons to be optimistic.
‘The GP1 is not just built to wow on a circuit, but be a true GT tourer and road car, too… it offers comfort, measured cabin noise, and luggage space for grand touring. Push harder, and it is transformed — raw, visceral, and alive.’ All nice sentiments, but it’s the tangible stuff that aims high, too: a clean-sheet carbon tub is said to underpin the car (a giant undertaking itself), the work of Dexet Technologies, a firm which recently moved out of London to Woking - a good place, surely, to recruit a few folk who might know about carbon chassis’d supercars…
Motoring a claimed 1,000kg of (dry) GP1 is a 6.6-litre V12; again Garagisti says the motor is ‘completely new and bespoke’, and it has been assisted in the endeavour by Italtecnica, whose recent powertrain work includes the 5.0 V8 in the Nardone 928 and the 500hp twincharged 2.1 in the Kimera 037. They’re surely as good a powertrain partner as is out there. The raw stats sound incredible, 800hp at 9,000rpm being the most exciting one. There’s more than 516lb ft of torque as well, plus the promise of a ‘mechanical soundtrack reminiscent of motorsports engines from a bygone era.’ The six-speed manual is from XTrac, the brakes are from Brembo, and the suspension is Ohlins.
Both inside and outside the GP1 have been designed by Angel Guerra; formerly of Bugatti and Rimac, he’s apparently had a hand in the Nevera, Mistral, Bolide and Tourbillon. While boasting a traditional supercar wedge silhouette, the GP1 also features what Garagisti is calling ‘some of the largest rear diffusers ever fitted to a road car’, for proper ground effect. The idea of creating something relatively pure and uncluttered extended to the interior, without screens and with every major control not far from the driver. Naturally, the customer will be able to spec whichever colours, trims and finishes they so desire - ‘akin to having your own private atelier’.
There won’t be many GP1 customers, that’s for certain; Garagisti & Co. suggest 25 road cars will be built at a cost of £2.45m plus taxes - another sign of its ambition operating at ludicrous speed. The first dozen folk will get special access to the project through something called the Open Doors programme, meeting engineers and designers across Europe as the car progresses. “Our vision for Garagisti was born from a simple question,” said Mario Escudero, co-founder of Garagisti & Co. “What if the golden age of analogue supercars never ended? What would the great cars of the ‘80s, ‘90s and early ‘00s look like today if they’d evolved with new technology but kept their analogue soul?
We brought together some of the best minds in the world and answered that question with our hands, our hearts, and our passion. The GP1 is our answer.” They’re saying all the right things, that’s for certain - but as ever the proof will be in the tricky-to-execute pudding. We can’t wait to find out more.
Don’t knock it till you try it.
It's not terrible by any means, but it's derivative to the point of outright plagiarism and not exactly cohesive to my eyes. It's as though someone asked ChatGPT to design a hypercar.
I suspect they'll build so few you could count it on the fingers of one hand.
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