Apollo (Gumpert era) History

Roland Gumpert conceived the project around 2000 with a simple but audacious goal: build a road-legal sports car capable of matching dedicated racing machinery around a circuit. Gumpert had spent years as director of Audi Sport, overseeing four World Rally Championship titles, and brought that motorsport discipline to the new car. The company was incorporated in 2004 as GMG Sportwagenmanufaktur Altenburg GmbH, and the Apollo entered production in October 2005 — a mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive machine with gullwing doors and a full carbon-fiber body over a tubular steel spaceframe, weighing as little as 1,100 kg.

Power came from a 4.2-liter twin-turbocharged Audi V8 available in three states of tune: approximately 641 hp in base form, 690 hp in Sport trim, and roughly 789 hp in Race specification. The aerodynamic package was extreme — Gumpert claimed the car generated enough downforce to theoretically drive upside-down at speeds above 300 km/h (untested). The car set a 7:11.57 lap time at the Nürburgring and, most famously, lapped the Top Gear test track in 1:17.1 in 2008, briefly holding the record as the fastest car ever tested there — quicker than both the Bugatti Veyron and the Pagani Zonda.

Production ran from 2005 through 2012; total units produced across all variants is cited at 44 by Wikipedia, though other references put the figure as high as ~150 across base, Sport, and Race (sources vary). In August 2013 Gumpert Sportwagenmanufaktur filed for bankruptcy after a major investor withdrew, ending the original company. The marque and intellectual property were acquired in January 2016 by the Hong Kong consortium Ideal Team Venture, which renamed the operation Apollo Automobil GmbH and relocated it to Denkendorf in Bavaria.