New Denza Z promises 1,604hp for £142k

BYD gets serious with a sub-two-second alternative to the usual suspects

By Stephen Dobie / Thursday, 9 July 2026 / Loading comments

Is it a McLaren? A Bentley? Maybe, if you really squint, it’s an early Lamborghini Aventador. Trying to spot the most obvious design influence in the Denza Z is, on the surface of it, quite a fun game to play, and certainly trickier than identifying the biggest image pinned to the mood board of the Denza Bao 5. Yet any snobbery around this Z looks rather naive. This is BYD taking one, ginormous vault into the £150,000 sports car realm, its premium offshoot gaining a suitably theatrical halo car to make the brand’s big Goodwood FoS takeover just a mite more convincing.

Committing a £142,900 sum to an entry-level Z will be some leap of faith, mind you. But your reward will be a peak of 1604hp from its trio of electric motors and 0-62mph in a mite over two seconds. The design is the work of Wolfgang Egger - he is also responsible for the Alfa Romeo 156, 166 and 8C Competizione, plus the Lambo Sterrato-preceding Audi Nanuk concept - and he describes it as "a living sculpture of speed”. It’s easy to spot some shared cues with a host of other, established sports car rivals, but perhaps the two-tone orange and black scheme is doing a lot of the heavy lifting there. It’s certainly not what you’d call ugly and the slickest versions boast a 0.25Cd aero profile to help eke out range - and make ‘em quicker.

Three versions - the Coupe, Spider (£159,900) and Racing (£172,900) - all pack the same powertrain. Up front is a 680hp motor, while the rear axle gets a pair of 462hp units, for the headline 1,604hp and 914lb ft peaks. All will hit sixty-two in two seconds (or so); the Coupe and Spider claim a 186mph top speed, the Racing a 217mph vmax and 0-62mph in 1.96 seconds on its optional semi-slicks. A further Z Special Edition will be aiming for Nürburgring records with over 2,000hp.

For now, all three Zs boast double wishbones up front and a multi-link setup at the rear; the Coupe and Spider get air suspension while the Racing uses coil springs. Each boast a set of carbon-ceramic brakes to trim at least some fat - handy, when they all weigh upwards of 2,200kg. The battery uses BYD’s Blade technology, possesses 76kWh and can flash charge at up to 1,500kW. Range figures are as high as 254 miles in the Coupe, dropping to 236 in the Racing. Presumably not at trackday speeds…

Trackdays are something Denza surely hopes you explore. It’s heaped lots of tech at the Z - as one might expect, to help it stand proud of the Porsches and AMGs it now considers rivals - with plenty of torque vectoring potential, a ‘compass turn’ where “the car can use its front wheels as an axis and revolve its rear wheels around it,” plus a highly configurable Track mode where you can adjust the Z’s behaviour to your liking. “Drifting can also be activated through a one-touch function,” we’re told, “which uses the torque control and power steering to achieve fun drifts without driver needing to adjust the steering or accelerator inputs.”

It’s about as far from the analogue movement or rested culture as it’s possible to get - and PH has had a go. Stay tuned for driving impressions later in the week…