Thailand News - Motoring - Friday December 07, 2007Das Deutsche GT
Should Porsche and Lotus buyers look at the Artega first?
The Artega GT is made on a lightweight yet rigid aluminium spaceframe chassis with tubular steel rear frame. The body is made of carbon-composite to effectively give the car a kerb weight of 1,100kg. The car measures 3,950 in length, 1,880mm in width and 1,180m in height - slightly bigger than a Lotus Exige.
Power comes from Volkswagen's 3.6-litre V6 direct petrol injection - used in the Passat R36 and Porsche Cayenne - producing some 300hp transversely mounted in the rear and mated to a six-speed twin-clutch smei-automatic gearbox propelling the rear wheels. The 0-100kph time is claimed at under 5sec with top speed of over 270kph.
Unlike most small British sports cars, the Artega GT has ABS, three-mode stability control that can be completely switched off, climate control and reversing camera display built-in on the rear-view mirror. Un-sportscar-like options include GPS navigator and multi data display.
Also unlike those British specialists that produce their cars in garage-size facilities, Artega is building a modern 500 cars-a-year micro factory complete with boutique showroom in Westphalia, Germany. Production starts in mid-2008. The founders of Artega are ex-men of Aston Martin and Maserati, so they should pretty much know what their customers want.
Main opponents include BMW Z4M, Lotus Exige, Nissan 350Z and Porsche Cayman S. Motoring understands Asian and Thai distributorship should be in place by 2009. Pre-tax price in Germany is some 63,000 euros or around B3.15m. Expect net cost in Thailand to be over B9m if and when it ever gets here.
Bangkok Post
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