De Tomaso owner behind Gumpert rescue

German hypercar maker Gumpert is now under the ownership of the same group of investors who saved Italian supercar brand De Tomaso, according to new reports.

In the email to car blog site, World Car Fans, the new owners confirmed that Gumpert would be renamed Apollo Automobil GmbH and that a “brand new Apollo” called the Arrow would be revealed at the Geneva motor show this March 2016.

The consortium of financial backers, called Ideal TeamVenture, bought De Tomaso last year for a reported $1.5 million. They revealed themselves to be the new owners in a statement published yesterday.

The reasons for renaming Gumpert have not been given, but some speculation put forward by industry commentators suggests ex-Audi engineer and founder, Roland Gumpert, might have declined to be involved with the new project.

Known as the “father of the quattro”, Gumpert’s boutique hypercar brand made a huge impression on the supercar landscape.

The car that made it famous was the fearsome Apollo. Priced from $700,000, it was powered by an Audi-based 478kW/850Nm 4.2-litre twin-turbo V8 engine and the 1200kg coupe could hit 100km/h in just 3sec. Reaching 200km/h took just 8.9sec, and the Apollo would top out at more than 360km/h.

In its lifetime it set lap records on both the Nurburgring and Top Gear’s test track.

Even faster (and more expensive) 600kW variants followed, but by the time production finished during 2013 the firm had built just 60 cars.

Building speculation the new Arrow hypercar will be revealed in a matter of days, Apollo’s new official website, apollo-automobil.com, has begun a countdown that lasts until January 11, from when, as the company describes it, a “New Chapter” will begin.

It’s not known whether the Arrow will be a rehashed version of the Tonante concept revealed back in 2011, or a heavily updated version of the Apollo.