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Written by Rowan Horncastle
Practicality isn"t exactly the first thing that comes to mind when looking at Ginetta"s new 200mph shark-inspired supercar, Akula. There are too many slats. Too much LMP1-inspired aero. And a hulking great 600bhp, front mid-engined V8 to tickle your intrigue first. But the 675-litres of commodious boot space is exactly what Ginetta"s boss Lawrence Tomlinson wants to talk about first. "You won"t believe the size of the boot," he says with a very matter-of-fact northern twang. "This is very much a road car and we want it to be used. I don"t know about you, but if I go away in my car I tend to take things with me; my wife"s going to want to take a bag, I"ll probably take some golf clubs, and depending on your sporting intentions you might want to take some shooting sticks. But you want to be able to use the car. That"s why we"ve made it easier to get in and out of. Why there"s loads of headroom. Why it"s happy doing long distances." He"s not wrong. The cabin is strangely Tardis-like. You sit low in fixed seats moulded into the carbon tub, and even with the engine set so far back it"s basically in your lap, it"s far airier and more spacious than, say, an AMG GT-R that has a similar bulky transmission tunnel dividing driver and passenger. But putting the homebrew 600bhp and 516lb ft naturally aspirated V8 engine in the front (but as far back as possible) of an intimating sledgehammer wasn"t dictated because of a need to pick up a couple of slabs of compost and the weekly shop on the way back from a booze cruise in Calais. It also wasn"t because Lawrence used to race a front-engined race car (a Panoz Esperante GT-LM) at Le Mans. It"s because he used to import boats.
Date written: 31 Jul 2019
More of this article on the Top gear website
ID: 16458
Practicality isn"t exactly the first thing that comes to mind when looking at Ginetta"s new 200mph shark-inspired supercar, Akula. There are too many slats. Too much LMP1-inspired aero. And a hulking great 600bhp, front mid-engined V8 to tickle your intrigue first. But the 675-litres of commodious boot space is exactly what Ginetta"s boss Lawrence Tomlinson wants to talk about first. "You won"t believe the size of the boot," he says with a very matter-of-fact northern twang. "This is very much a road car and we want it to be used. I don"t know about you, but if I go away in my car I tend to take things with me; my wife"s going to want to take a bag, I"ll probably take some golf clubs, and depending on your sporting intentions you might want to take some shooting sticks. But you want to be able to use the car. That"s why we"ve made it easier to get in and out of. Why there"s loads of headroom. Why it"s happy doing long distances." He"s not wrong. The cabin is strangely Tardis-like. You sit low in fixed seats moulded into the carbon tub, and even with the engine set so far back it"s basically in your lap, it"s far airier and more spacious than, say, an AMG GT-R that has a similar bulky transmission tunnel dividing driver and passenger. But putting the homebrew 600bhp and 516lb ft naturally aspirated V8 engine in the front (but as far back as possible) of an intimating sledgehammer wasn"t dictated because of a need to pick up a couple of slabs of compost and the weekly shop on the way back from a booze cruise in Calais. It also wasn"t because Lawrence used to race a front-engined race car (a Panoz Esperante GT-LM) at Le Mans. It"s because he used to import boats.
Date written: 31 Jul 2019
More of this article on the Top gear website
ID: 16458
