- Britain’s Ginetta has unveiled the $360k Akula, its most ambitious, and most expensive, road car yet.
- The production version of 2019’s Akula concept has a full carbon chassis and weighs just 2,600 lbs.
- Power comes from a 6.4-liter V8 that sends 600 hp to a 6sp manual, or an optional 7sp DCT.
The Ginetta Akula must be one of the ugliest cars we’ve seen since, well, since the Akula concept was unveiled in 2019. But it’s hard not to love a car that weighs just 2,600 lbs (1,190 kg), has a naturally-aspirated V8 and sends 600 hp (608 PS) to the rear wheels through a six-speed manual transmission.
UK-based Ginetta, or incarnations of the company, have been building sports cars for almost 70 years. It was part of the same post-war, cottage-industry sports car boom that gave us Lotus and Marcos – and has been through some of the same ups and downs. But for the past 20 years, since being acquired by its current owner, Lawrence Tomlinson, Ginetta has focused on its competition exploits and building race cars.
Related: Ginetta’s 600HP Supercar Looks Sharp Enough To Cut Through A Ferrari
The Akula, then, is a major departure, the company’s most ambitious road car yet, and at £275,000 ($360k) plus taxes, by far its most expensive. The angry-looking coupe is packed with trick motorsport know-how and materials that include both a carbon monocoque and carbon subframes. But Ginetta says the Akula is not just designed to impress on the track, but is practical enough to be driven there and back without you starting to wish you’d trailered it behind your Range Rover within five minutes of setting off.
Besides the carbon construction, other details that remind us of Ginetta’s motorsport focus are the steel roll cage, and an aero package derived from the one on the company’s G61-LT-P1 LMP1 racecar. It consists of a flat floor, turning vanes, a rear wing and a diffuser below it. Ginetta doesn’t quote downforce figures, but we don’t doubt that they’re healthy enough to put some real pressure on those 20-profile Pirelli P Zero sidewalls.
Billet V8, manual ‘box
Propulsion comes courtesy of a 6.4-liter V8 that’s mounted in front of the driver, but far behind the front axle line, much like the V12 Ferrari’s new 12Cilindri. Ginetta says this configuration delivers a great handling balance and makes it easier to package the best aerodynamic aids compared with a mid-engined setup.
That V8, by the way, isn’t a simple crate-engine job. It’s built around Ginetta’s own billet aluminium block and features a titanium valve train. Its 600-horse maximum arrives at 7,200 rpm and is backed up by 494 lb-ft (670 Nm) of torque at 5,100 rpm.
Zero to 62 mph (100 kmh) takes 2.9 seconds and the top whack is 180 mph (290 kmh), and though those numbers don’t make the Akula stand out of the supercar crowd, the fact that it’s available with a six-speed manual transmission certainly does. Prefer to keep both hands on the wheel? A seven-speed dual-clutch ‘box is also available, again driving the rear wheels through a limited slip differential.
Pace and space
Suspension is via double wishbones with billet uprights and pushrod-operated dampers that can be tweaked electronically from inside the cabin. The motorsport-style front and rear anti-roll bars are also adjustable, but that’s an old-fashioned mechanical job that requires the car to be parked up. And if you think you’ll want more stopping power and fade resistance than the stock steel rotors can provide, a carbon brake upgrade is available as an option.
That all sounds like a great recipe for a really fun track-focused supercar, but what you don’t usually get in those kinds of cars is a 100-liter (26.4 gallon) fuel tank that promises a 450-mile (724 km) range, or a 473-liter (16.7 cu-ft) trunk that offers more cargo space than a VW Golf R.
The Akula also has a wireless phone charger and a Ginetta’s own infotainment system with Apple iOS integration. But both are located in an interior that’s dominated by a proper racecar steering wheel with no top or bottom.
Does that strange blend of crazy and comfortable make the Akula a brilliantly-rounded supercar or something that’s trying too hard too be everything to everybody and risks having no clear identity? Only a very small number of people will ever get to find out for sure, because Ginetta is capping production at 20 units.
Tomlinson says he’s bagged car number one, which means Ginetta needs to find 19 buyers willing to look past the Akula’s awkward aesthetics to find that beauty is more than skin deep. A few tugs on the manual transmission shifter should do plenty to nudge interested parties in the right direction, and away from auto-only supercar alternatives.
