Meet Apollo’s latest creation: the Intensa Emozione “IE”

Anyone remember a particularly unattractive but insanely quick car called the Apollo Gumpert? Well, the performance nuts are at it again, but its no concept, it’s an all-new car built for sale, road-legal too. It’s the new Intensa Emozione (Italian for intense emotions) or more easily referred to as the ‘IE’.

Designed with the intent to tickle those petrol-head desires of absolutely mad and angry looks with big wings, and boy does the IE have a strong wing-game. Where performance is not in the numbers, but in the emotions, that combination of excitement, bliss and brown-pantsing fear that makes a car so endearing, so special. It’s fitting then, the name Intensa Emozione.

Apollo has focussed on performance through lightness and design, a superleggera with supreme aerodynamic efficiency for LMP race car kind of grip through fast corners. Don’t worry though, they haven’t been stingy with performance. Keeping in tone with the nature of this supercar to hark back to the thrill of performance and cardom, they haven’t mucked about with turbos or hybrid systems. Instead, Apollo has fitted the IE with a 6.3-litre naturally-aspirated V12 that revs to 9000rpm and can produce over 769bhp and 760Nm of torque. It is mated to a race-proven 6-speed Hewland gearbox with fully interchangeable ratios, operated via electro-pneumatic paddle shifters, to transfer all the power to the rear wheels.

The IE isn’t meant for speed records or outrageous numbers, it’s for warping around curves with the V12 roaring loud and resplendent. A classic yet modern supercar. The triple exhaust is a thing of beauty in itself, the engine compartment is lined with hear-reflective gold leaf, the tubular steel chassis covered extensively in carbon-fibre with a carbon-tub in the middle. Apollo says the whole thing weighs 1250kg with the chassis itself only weighing 105kg.

It’s got Brembo Carbo-Ceramic brakes to stop you from driving through tyre walls and fields. The suspension is race-inspired too, using double-wishbone with push-rod and rocker arm architecture. The dampers are adjustable and offer three modes – Comfort, Sport and Auto. Speaking of modes, the IE offers 3 engine map modes, 12 traction control levels and 10 ABS setting levels.

The interior is just as intense with seats like cushions stuck to the carbon tub, a racing steering wheel in front of shift paddles that are from the supercars of little boys dreams, while the pedal box adjusts to meet the driver’s proportions. And just look at that red! Of course, all those little details are up for a high degree of customisation as requested by an owner. The IE is civil enough, with air con, heating, ventialtion and such, all controlled by a roof-mounted 5-inch touch display while the driver information is displayed via a 12-inch colour screen behind the controls.

Apollo will be making only 10 units of the Intensa Emozione IE, at €2.3 million a pop making it quite an exclusive item. The company has also hinted at their next model in the pipeline, a production-spec of the Arrow which will debut in 2019. What do you think? Happy to see a purist kind of supercar in this age of tech and turbos? We are. Share your thoughts in the comment section.