It had to happen – after a decade of producing cheap motor cars, China is now branching into the supercar market with the Icona Vulcano.
If you think you have seen this car before, you haven’t, but you have seen similar if you think LFA, Ferrari F12 and Corvette Stingray, all supercars with front-mounted engines, and now joined by the Icona Vulcano which was unveiled at the Shanghai motor show last month.
The Icona Vulcano engineer is Claudio Lombardi who spent some time in Ferrari’s powertrain department, and the car sports 670 kW powered by a 6.0 liter V12 with assistance by hybrid electric motors. This is very similar to the 6.0 liter V12 hybrid driveline Ferrari showed in the 2010 599 HY-KERS concept.
Chinese supercar.
Icona claims that the car has the potential to reach a top speed of 350 km/h and accelerate from 0-200 km/h in less than 10 seconds, performance that rivals Ferrari’s 458 Italia coupe.
The body comes from former Nissan and Jaguar Land Rover designer Samuel Chuffart who is hoping to create a design fusion whereby “Beauty and the Beast come together”. Some areas are definitely Euro, whilst others a garishly Asian, especially the front/grille treatment. Beauty and the beast do not really come together for me.
