It may be ugly, but the Gumpert Apollo just proved it's the quickest production car around Germany's grueling Nürburgring. Apparently supercars aren't dead after all
Posted 08.20.2009 at 10:59 am
19 Comments
Gumpert Apollo Speed Breaks Nürburgring Lap Record
The Gumpert Apollo Speed is ugly but fast. Twenty-six-year-old racing driver Florian Gruber did the lap in 7:11.57, beating the Dodge Viper’s record of 7:22.1. The Apollo Speed's aerodynamiclly tuned body produces around 3,000 pounds of downforce at 225 miles per hour.
Gumpert Sportwagenmanufaktur GmbH
The Gumpert Apollo Speed may be uglier than a naked mole rat (please, don't Google the rat, trust me), but it's also ridiculously fast. So fast, indeed, that the Apollo this week set the fastest lap time of any production car around German's legendary Nürburgring Nordschleife. Why does that matter? It proves some people will never stop manipulating physics for purposes of speed, no matter how much time others spend on fuel efficiency. Twenty-six-year-old racing driver Florian Gruber did the lap in 7:11.57, taking a 10-second bite out of the Dodge Viper's record of 7:22.1.
The Apollo Speed is, to put it mildly, a racecar for the street. It's powered by a 4.2-liter V8 sourced from Audi, and twin turbocharged to put out 700 horsepower -- about six times that of a Honda Fit, which weighs in the same neighborhood of 2,500 pounds. Such massive power flourishes by way of a body designed to direct passing air to produce hundreds of pounds of aerodynamic downforce, increasing the pressure between the contact area of the tire and the road surface. That provides tremendous grip by which the Apollo Speed can take the Nordschleife's 100 corners at blazing speeds. At full clip, around 225 miles per hour, the Apollo is said to produce 3,000 pounds of downforce, enough to drive upside down in a tunnel, in theory.
The Nürburgring Nordschleife has become the de-facto proving ground for modern production sports cars. The 12.9-mile toll road includes 33 left turns and 40 right turns -- some of the most treacherous curves in motordom. It's also got a decades-old racing mystique, and public accessibility, which have made it a prominent entry on gearhead bucket lists the world over. That's why beating the 'ring, and making a YouTube video to prove it, is about the best marketing move a sports car company can make, even one that plans to roll only a double-digits'-worth of cars out of its production facility.
Germany's Sport Auto magazine is the keeper of the Nürburgring lap times, which are unsanctioned by any racing organization and thus still technically unofficial. It may seem like a frivolous way to spend a few gallons of gas, but a video showing Gruber's skill behind the wheel proves why feats of speed will always be part of the automotive world. Discuss.
[YouTube via Sport Auto.]
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you are not kidding. That car is terrible looking. so is the new camaro.
dear god!!! that guy makes it look easy to drive at 200mph!!!
i kind of like the way it looks. it looks evil in a way.
Some people have no sense of taste, the 2009 Camaro is the hottest looking sportscar GM has put out since 68, or 79 if you like Smokey and the Bandit.
As for this new car, ugly?? I hereby declare the new definition of awesomeness and beauty to be a car that can theoretically drive upside down in a tunnel.
And it's a damn site nicer than the brick Tommy Lee Jones piloted in MiB.
(p.s. Elvis is NOT dead, he just went home.)
i dont care what you guys say this car, and the all new chevy camaro
I don't know what's wrong with you guys but this is just the type of look I've wanted in a commercial car for a long time! It got rid of the stupid curve look in every single car on the road with the stupid looking grill and made a new sleek beautiful driving machine! If only it was in my price range of about 1,000 dollars (seeing as I am too young to get a job by law).
The drive had my heart pumping!
Yes, it's ugly to me as well... it LOOKS aerodynamically dirty with all the sharp inside corners. I suspect that a modification of the same design could be even faster and cleaner, and would be more visually appealing too.
I was surprised by the deep timbre; the engine sounded as if it was barely struggling. I would have expected something more whiny, like that of an Indy car. I also noticed Gruber did not seem to be shifting as aggressively as he could have, and had he done so he could conceivably have shaved another second or two off of his record time.
A simple course such as Indy or Daytona is one which a driver can spend several hours optimizing entry speed and angle to reduce lap time, but Nurburgring's Nordschleife (north loop) is so numbingly complex and long that such a tactic would be difficult to make serious use of. Maybe the Apollo Speed has a head-up display to alert the driver of the makeup of each curve he is just about to enter.
Electric sports cars have advantages at such venues. They need far fewer gears requiring fewer shifts, have much wider torque curves and greater horsepower, and they do not generate the searing heat, deafening noise and vibration that fatigue a driver. Tesla, Lightning (of the U.K.) or one of the other new EV car makers is bound to challenge the Apollo Speed's record eventually... I hope it's soon, and successful.
I'd hit it.
Radical SR8LM
http://www.topgear.com/uk/car-news/radical-sr8lm-2009-08-21
already crushed, if you consider the SR8LM a road legal
I think that this car doesn't seem like it would be very aerodynamical ecspecially with that big front grill, I mean for a bunch of German scientists they should have known better than to have that huge concave front grill. I personally think that the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 was a much better design.
This car is very aerodynamic. The very design makes it huge the ground so you can take corners at insane speeds. Anyone can design to cut through the air, but its the control that matters.
Ugly? Well I personally like it, and the speed with control that it offers is incredible.
I know that the front grill was made for control on turns, but it is still not worth building a vehicle like that. I mean with such an aerodynamicl body just having the grill made like that would create a vast difference in its air resistance. The grill will also hinder the the cars D.F. capabilities by the pound.
The car isn't that bad looking. I'd drive it, especially if I had access to a track where I could let loose every once in a while.
It's a wonderful car! I hate the "modern" 1970 "Tron" look they have almost all adopted. This looks like a real car. Hey, I drive a GT350 Mustang ('84) and love it. Real cars age getting few and far between.
the car has a definite out there look but the grill dose have porpouse and at least there trying, when was the last time u made a german car........ oh yeah never
ha
That is not ugly. The curves look awesome and futuristic. I'm sure it has an excellent air resistance factor.