Gautam Sharma•1 Feb 2013
NEWS
Lebanon's first supercar debuts at Qatar show
A $3.3m bling-laden Lebanese supercar succeeded in grabbing much of the limelight at the Qatar motor showThe Middle East is renowned for many things – shawarmas, falafels and oil wells being among the stereotyped examples – but homegrown supercars aren’t exactly one of their staple offerings.
Well, there’s always a first, and in this case it comes in the form of the W Motors Lykan Hypersport, a $3.3 million supercar that packs a Porsche-derived twin-turbo flat-six engine that thumps out 552kW and 1000Nm for a claimed 0-100km/h sprint of 2.8sec and v-max of 395km/h.
If these numbers have any substance, it puts the Lykan Hypersport in the same ballpark as the Bugatti Veyron, which would go at least some way towards justifying the car’s Vaucluse mansion-rivalling pricetag.
Its Beirut-based maker hasn’t provided a great deal of information about the car, other than to announce just seven examples will be built and (theoretically) sold to well-heeled collectors and enthusiasts.
In order to take the project from vision to reality, W Motors enlisted the help of high-profile partners such as Austria’s Magna Steyr and well-known Porsche tweaker RUF, which prepared the Lykan Hypersport’s monstrous engine.
The brains behind the car is company chairman Ralph R Debbas, who allegedly studied automotive design at Coventry University’s School of Art and Design.
W Motors describes itself as a maker of the “most exclusive, luxurious and technologically advanced high-performance sports cars”, but getting buyers to part with $3.3m may not be an easy task for the start-up manufacturer with no cred to rely on.
Be that as it may, the razor-edged Hypersport is an eye-catching and futuristic looking mid-engined coupe with some Lamborghini-esque design flourishes. Where it stands apart from the supercar horde is in the use of elements such as diamond-coated LED headlights and gold stitching for the leather seats.
And as a novel value-add, buyers of the Lykan Hypersport also receive a special Cyrus Klepcys watch (worth around $200,000) watch with their purchase.
W Motors hasn’t as yet announced where the car will be built or when the first deliveries will take place, but the company has revealed it is also working on a ‘Supersport’ version.
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Written byGautam Sharma
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