R8 Engine Finds New Home in Italdesign Supercar

Giorgietto Giugiaro’s design house, Italdesign has decided to try its hand at selling supercars. With a V10 engine borrowed from its parent company, Audi, the new “Ultra Low Series Cars” will be the Italian company’s vision of the ultimate road car, is a sentence that improves with every word.

Italdesign has been responsible for some of history’s most memorable cars, including the Lancia Delta, the Lotus Esprit, the Volkswagen Scirocco, and recently the Audi Q2. For its own cars, though, the company has set up a sub-brand, called Italdesign Automobili Speciali.

The special automobiles produced by Italdesign are designed for “collectors and visionary enthusiasts,” so production will be limited. In fact, some might call it “ultra-limited” as IAS intends to build only five of the pictured cars by the end of 2017.

That so far unnamed car is based around a modular chassis, made of carbon fiber and aluminum. Under the hood, it will be endowed with the 5.2-liter V10 from the Audi R8. This, says IAS, will get the car to 60 in just 3.2 seconds and on to a top speed of over 205 mph.

The body will measure 190 inches in length 77 inches in width, and 47 inches in height. Unlike the chassis, the body will only be made out of carbon fiber and will be designed to slip through the air as efficiently as possible.

“Styling has been integrated since the very beginning with early engineering and production processes,” says Antonio Casu, Chief Technical Officer. “All this allowed us to produce a state-of-the-art car in terms of performance and safety.”

If you don’t manage to get your hands on one of these 5 cars, though, fear not. In an interview with Automotive News, CEO Jeorg Astalosch said that IAS plans on releasing a new “one-off or ultra-low volume series every 18-24 months.”

The perplexingly categorized “one-offs” will be limited to fewer than 10 examples, while the “ultra-low volume” series will range from 10 to 99 units.

Until then, you can expect to see the first Italdesign special automobile next month at the Geneva Motor Show. According to the company, the car will come with an equally exclusive eight-piece set from Swiss watchmaker Roger Dubuis. Together they’ll cost about $1.6 million.

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