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Gumpert Explosion extracts 420 horses from just 2.0 litres

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Gumpert Explosion

With apologies (and due credit) to the R8, it's with rally cars and premium hot hatches that we'd more closely associate Audi than with supercars. Yet when the head of Audi's competition department left to start his own outfit, it was a belligerent, low-slung supercar that he developed.

That man, of course, was Roland Gumpert, the mastermind behind Audi's domination of the rally scene in the 1980s. That mid-engined supercar was the Gumpert Apollo, a devastatingly quick (though aesthetically challenged) exotic that could keep the pace with the best that Maranello and Woking could throw at it. Gumpert momentarily went under a couple of years ago, but now it's back with new investors and a new product that aims to correct that historical wrong. Inexplicably, it's called the Explosion, and it just debuted here at the Geneva Motor Show.

The first product from the reborn GSM Gumpert Sportwagenmanufaktur GmbH, the Gumpert Explosion is a front-engined, all-wheel drive rally machine for the road that's closer to what its namesake developed at Audi Sport all those years ago than with the Apollo he made in between. Power comes from a 2.0-litre turbo four (presumably sourced from his old friends in Ingolstadt) that's so highly tuned that it cranks out a massive 420 horsepower and 383 pound-feet of torque. If that's not enough, there's also a planned Explosion S derivative, which adds one cylinder and nets 503 horsepower and 461 lb-ft from its 2.5 litres.

With a tubular frame and carbon-fibre chassis overlaid in aluminum and fibreglass bodywork, the standard Explosion is quoted as having a 0-100 km/h (0-62 mph) time of 3-seconds flat and a top speed in excess of 300 km/h (186 mph). Best of all, it's no showstand princess: the reborn Gumpert is taking orders now at €105,000 before taxes and delivery, equivalent to $160 k at today's exchange rates. Scope it out in the press release below and our gallery of live images above from the floor of the Geneva Palexpo.

Continue reading Gumpert Explosion extracts 420 horses from just 2.0 litres

Gumpert Explosion extracts 420 horses from just 2.0 litres originally appeared on Autoblog Canada on Tue, 04 Mar 2014 17:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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