Tag Archives: vehicles

Apollo Evo: A Track-Only V12 Hypercar That Makes Subtlety a Casualty

Three years is an eternity in the hypercar world, but Apollo would argue the wait was the point. After first surfacing as a prototype, the Apollo Evo has finally emerged in production form—and it hasn’t mellowed with age. If anything, it’s gone further off the deep end. Limited to just 10 examples and designed strictly for the racetrack, the Evo is the logical, louder continuation of the already unhinged Intensa Emozione. The first customer car is now under construction, and the message is clear: this thing was never meant to blend in.

Freed from the burden of road legality, Apollo has designed the Evo with a singular focus on performance and spectacle. The result is a car that makes even the most extroverted creations from Pagani or Koenigsegg look almost conservative. This is not a machine interested in compromise—or subtlety.

At its core sits a carbon-fiber monocoque that tips the scales at just 165 kilograms (364 pounds). That’s a 10 percent weight reduction over the IE’s already feathery structure, while stiffness has increased by 15 percent. Apollo doesn’t just talk about weight savings in marketing terms—it engineers them into the foundation of the car.

Drape that tub in bodywork and the Evo’s intent becomes impossible to miss. Sharp LED lighting slices into the front and rear, while a towering roof scoop feeds air into the mechanical madness below. Out back, a massive diffuser and an active rear wing dominate the view. That wing isn’t just for show, either: Apollo claims it can generate a staggering 1,300 kilograms (2,866 pounds) of downforce at 320 km/h (200 mph). At that point, the Evo is theoretically capable of producing more downforce than its own curb weight—a stat that neatly sums up how far removed this car is from reality as most drivers know it.

The interior is no refuge from the insanity. Apollo has stripped away anything that doesn’t serve a direct function, exposing the car’s structural and mechanical elements rather than hiding them behind leather and trim. The dashboard itself doubles as a structural beam, and the control layout follows a logic dictated by track use, not convenience. This isn’t minimalism for aesthetic reasons—it’s functional brutality. The Evo doesn’t want to coddle its driver; it wants to involve them.

Then there’s the engine, and it’s the reason purists will pay attention. In an era increasingly dominated by turbochargers, hybrid systems, and silent electric propulsion, the Evo proudly sticks with a naturally aspirated 6.3-liter V12. Derived from Ferrari’s F140 engine family—the same lineage that powered cars like the F12 Berlinetta—it revs to 8,500 rpm and produces 800 horsepower and 564 lb-ft of torque (765 Nm). No turbo lag, no battery assistance—just displacement, revs, and noise.

Power is sent exclusively to the rear wheels through a six-speed sequential gearbox, reinforcing the Evo’s old-school, driver-first ethos. There’s no mention of all-wheel drive, torque vectoring, or electronic trickery designed to make things easier. The assumption here is that if you’re buying an Apollo Evo, you already know what you’re doing—or you’re willing to learn the hard way.

The rolling stock matches the aggression. Forged wheels measure 20 inches up front and 21 inches at the rear, wrapped in Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 R tires—the kind of rubber you choose when longevity is irrelevant and grip is everything. Combined with the Evo’s low mass, the numbers get serious quickly.

Despite its dramatic aero and V12 soundtrack, the Evo weighs just 1,300 kilograms (2,866 pounds). That power-to-weight ratio helps launch it to 100 km/h (62 mph) in just 2.7 seconds, with a claimed top speed of 335 km/h (208 mph). Those figures put it squarely in modern hypercar territory, but the way it gets there—naturally aspirated, rear-wheel drive, sequential gearbox—feels increasingly rare.

As exclusive as the hardware is, Apollo is pushing individuality even further. Every Evo will be a one-off, with each owner choosing their own combination of materials and finishes. Pricing starts at €3 million (about $3.5 million) before taxes, and first deliveries are expected in the first half of this year.

The Apollo Evo isn’t trying to be the future of performance cars. It’s a defiant celebration of excess, noise, and mechanical purity—a reminder that sometimes the most exciting answer to modern automotive trends is to ignore them entirely.

Source: AutoExpress

Bugatti Programme Solitaire Revives Coachbuilding for the Hypercar Era

Bugatti has never been especially interested in subtlety, but Programme Solitaire isn’t about excess for its own sake. It’s about legacy—specifically, the kind of legacy that predates wind tunnels, carbon fiber tubs, and Nürburgring lap times. This is Bugatti reaching backward almost as deliberately as it lunges forward.

Programme Solitaire is the modern expression of the brand’s early-20th-century obsession with coachbuilding, when Bugattis were rolling canvases shaped by craftsmen rather than CAD files. Back then, individuality wasn’t a marketing buzzword—it was the business model. No two cars were quite alike, and that uniqueness was the point. Programme Solitaire aims to resurrect that philosophy, albeit filtered through the realities of 21st-century hypercar manufacturing.

At its core, the program offers something money alone can’t usually buy anymore: authorship. Owners aren’t just selecting colors and materials from a lavish menu; they’re contributing a personal chapter to Bugatti’s ongoing story. It’s less “special edition” and more “rolling thesis statement,” executed with the full weight of Bugatti’s design and engineering apparatus behind it.

Now Bugatti is preparing to open the next—and most exclusive—chapter yet. The marque is teasing a one-of-one creation under the Programme Solitaire banner, positioned as a tribute to a defining icon from its past. Details are scarce, intentionally so, but the message is clear: this will be a singular object, designed not to be replicated, repeated, or meaningfully compared.

Calling it a car almost undersells the intent. Bugatti is framing this as automotive artistry—something meant to sit at the intersection of heritage, craftsmanship, and mythmaking. It’s a celebration of what the brand has been, and a reminder that in Bugatti’s world, history isn’t just preserved. It’s actively manufactured.

In an era where exclusivity is often achieved by limiting production runs and inflating price tags, Programme Solitaire takes a more old-world approach. There is no run. There is no “next one.” There is only this car, this moment, and one name attached to it forever.

For everyone else, it’s a reminder that Bugatti still plays a different game. Not faster, necessarily. Not louder. Just rarer—and very deliberately so.

Source: Bugatti

Thieves Make a Clean Getaway With Ferrari and $1.4M Porsche

If you’ve ever wondered how long it takes to steal nearly eight figures’ worth of dream cars, the answer—apparently—is less time than it takes to brew a decent cup of coffee.

Early Sunday morning, a Canadian car dealership was relieved of eight high-end vehicles in a theft that reportedly lasted between eight and ten minutes. No tow trucks, no elaborate Mission: Impossible choreography. Just a crowbar, a box of keys, and enough confidence to walk out with a Ferrari 812 GTS, a Porsche 911 GT3, two Mercedes-Benz S580s, and two BMW M4s.

According to footage released by Global News, the operation looked less like a smash-and-grab and more like a grimly efficient pit stop. Roughly a dozen thieves, all dressed in black and wearing masks, smashed through the dealership’s glass doors at around 3:35 a.m. Once inside, they went straight for a wall-mounted lockbox containing the keys to every vehicle on the lot. A crowbar made short work of it.

From there, the group calmly rearranged furniture to clear an exit path, fired up the engines, and drove off—one by one—in some of the most desirable performance cars money can buy.

It took another four hours before anyone noticed.

The list of stolen cars reads like the lineup at an enthusiast fantasy draft. The Ferrari 812 GTS alone packs a naturally aspirated V-12 producing 789 horsepower, while the Porsche 911 GT3—arguably the most track-focused road car Porsche sells—carries an estimated value of around $1.4 million. That GT3, notably, remains missing.

Four of the stolen vehicles have since been recovered, and one suspect has been arrested. Another thief reportedly left a trail of blood at the scene, suggesting that not everything went entirely according to plan. Still, as far as high-speed automotive crime goes, this one was alarmingly smooth.

What makes the story unsettling isn’t just the value of the cars, but how easily they were taken. No hacking of encrypted ECUs. No relay attacks on keyless entry systems. Just a physical lockbox full of keys, waiting behind glass doors. It’s a reminder that while modern cars are rolling fortresses of software and sensors, the weakest link is often still a piece of hardware bolted to a wall.

The Porsche’s disappearance is particularly painful. GT3s aren’t just expensive—they’re sacred objects in enthusiast culture, engineered with obsessive focus and often spec’d by owners who waited years for an allocation. Seeing one vanish into the criminal ether is the kind of thing that keeps collectors awake at night.

Dealerships, meanwhile, are left with an uncomfortable takeaway: it doesn’t matter how advanced the cars are if the keys are easier to steal than the vehicles themselves.

As for the missing GT3, there’s a good chance it’s already been shipped overseas, stripped for parts, or hidden away in a warehouse where its flat-six will never see a redline again. For enthusiasts, that may be the real tragedy—not the money, but the loss of a machine built to be driven, reduced to a line item in a police report.

Eight minutes. Eight cars. And one Porsche that, for now, has disappeared without a trace.

Source: Global News via YouTube