Pininfarina colloborates on V12-powered Turbio

Seven-figure hybrids are becoming all the rage - so long as there's a V12 engine to plug-in next to...

Remember that brief period when supercar startups were all about whizzy electric motors and skateboard chassis and tech bro delusions of grandeur? Well, on the basis that not even Rimac, the immaculate conceiver of the hyper-EV, cannot convince people to go wild for battery-powered speed, those times are well and truly behind us. The tech bros, it turns out, want enormous, free-revving petrol engines. Just like the rest of us.

Accordingly, Vittori, who you could be forgiven for never having heard of (we hadn’t, though it is claimed to be kind of a big deal in eVTOL tech), is attempting to ride a niche but ever-growing wave of new carmakers that claim to be fusing old-world engines with a new-world approach. If your knee-jerk reaction to that is to gently point out that is what Ferrari and McLaren and Lamborghini and every other high-end OEM with skin in the supercar game is currently doing, then you would be correct. But apparently the market for one-percenters is considered sufficiently large that Vittori feels like it can elbow room for itself alongside the likes of the Revuelto.

We mention Lamborghini’s flagship because the new Turbio (yep), revealed in Miami on the weekend, also combines a V12 engine with a ‘high-capacity Lithium-ion’ hybrid system. Vittori does not go into exhaustive detail about battery capacity or its liquid cooling setup or even the electric motor (which ultimately enables a 1,100hp output) because it hardly needs to - a) because it’s still in development and subject to change, and b) the star of the show is very much the adjoining 6.7-litre unit that makes all the noise.

Apparently, this vast new engine is the work of Italtecnica, who you might remember from previous appearances in the Nardone 928 and Kimera 037 and even more recently in the Garagisti & Co. GP1, which is a British effort to get people to pay more than £2m for a V12 hypercar. Doubtless, Vittori would tell you that model features a different engine to the Turbio, although presumably many of the same lessons are being applied to a naturally aspirated unit that is said to churn out 830hp at 8,500rpm.

According to its maker, this will result in a 0-60mph time of ‘under 2.5 seconds’ - which sounds about right for a car that is claimed to feature ‘innovative materials, like carbon fibre and advanced alloy powders’, whatever they are. The official website also makes unspecified but plentiful mention of ‘AI-powered 3D printing’ and about setting new standards in aerodynamics, which can probably be taken with roughly the same amount of salt you’d find being extracted daily from a working salt mine - though Vittori's partner on the project has confirmed that ‘AI was instrumental in the early phases of design’.

When the partner in question is Pininfarina, greater weight, perhaps, can be given to the Turbio’s appearance. Make of it what you will, though Vittori’s CEO and founder suggests that they were aiming for something ‘that feels like flight, like sculpture, like power at your fingertips’, which we can all get on board with, conceptually speaking. At any rate, the American-Italian manufacturer is planning a run of just 50 cars and is already offering potential customers the chance to get in the queue. No official word on price, though it will certainly run to seven figures. We’re told to expect more details in the coming months ahead of slated deliveries in 2027.

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86wasagoodyear

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