Vision Gran Turismo is a project you associate with Bugatti, Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren and a few other esteemed performance brands. So you can imagine our curiosity when we found out the next to join the roster, would be a Skoda. Meet the Skoda 1,100 OHC Spider.
No, it’s not a Fabia with a few wings and canards. It’s a single-seater all-electric hypercar with four electric motors delivering 1,088PS (800kW) and 1,020nm (752lb ft). No figures are given for its performance but you have to imagine it’ll be absolutely rapid.
Skoda’s Vision GT is as you’d expect a caricature of its new ‘Modern Solid’ design language, albeit draped over an incredible central-seat hypercar speedster. It’s a curious design that melds straight edges with curves, incorporating air flow manipulation without gratuitous aero appendages. That is, until two sprout when you hit the brakes hard. It’s really quite an elegant thing, with a distinctively ‘front-engined’ silhouette, in spite of its all-electric motor-on-wheel powertrain.
On the inside as you’d expect, it’s a sea of high-tech frippery and a glazing of forged carbon fibre, with a view out over a complex yoke steering wheel and long ‘hood’. Happily, the myriad controls stand out in orange.
The Skoda historians among you will have noted that the name is borrowed, from Skoda’s 1957 Le Mans car. Yes, this humble everyman manufacturer once shared La Sarthe with the Jaguar D-Type, albeit competing in a lower engine capacity class.
“The Škoda Vision Gran Turismo study bridges our rich heritage to our electric future and new Modern Solid design language,” said Klaus Zellmer, Skoda CEO.
“Our customers are explorers, and the sleek Škoda Vision Gran Turismo car is a great way to enrich their experiences while also attracting new fans to our brand.”
Report by Ethan Jupp
