QUESTION OF THE WEEK: ASCARI A10, GUMPERT APOLLO OR ZENVO ST1?
What an era the Noughties was. Pagani was busy picking fights with Ferrari and Lamborghini, while Porsche and Mercedes went toe-to-toe with two very different takes on what a supercar should be. Then we had the birth of the hypercar class, led mostly by Bugatti and its record-breaking Veyron, and supported strongly by some bloke from Sweden.
We could go on forever, frankly. But in this edition of our running Question of the Week series, we wanted to spare a thought for some of the lesser-known performance juggernauts that emerged during that period. And we’re certainly not short on options.
The Ascari A10 was built (in Banbury no less) as the bare-knuckle, no-compromise follow-up to the KZ1. With a massive 4.9-litre BMW-sourced V8 sending 625bhp to the rear wheels through a six-speed sequential transmission, this is less a car and more a supernova of decibels and fossil fuels. Just like anything which comes out of Banbury should be.
And how about the Gumpert Apollo? Despite the somewhat amusing name and equally amusing design, nothing is amusing about what this thing can do to your internal organs when you open it up on a track. It, too, has a V8 - albeit a smaller 4.2-litre displacement - and a six-speed sequential to harness the raw grunt. The similarities don’t end there, either, since the Apollo and the A10 linger around the 1,200kg mark.
So it would be appropriate at this point to introduce a third obscurity into the mix, because why not. Pop over to Denmark and a suitable opposite number can be found in the Zenvo ST1: a similarly V8-powered, similarly focused supercar that set its sights on taking down the big guns. Oh, it also has over 1,000bhp… and a manual gearbox. Madness.
What do we reckon, readers? If you were given the keys to one of these three cars and an hour to squeeze every nth of performance out of it on a closed-off Laguna Seca, which would you choose?