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CO N T E N T S
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02BRAND & HERITAGE
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08ARROW – ENGINEERING PRINCIPLES
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04A NEW CHAPTER
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16MOVING WHEN STANDING STILL
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06APOLLO N
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B R A N D & H E R I TAG E
SINCE THE INVENTION OF THE INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE
IN 1807, MAN HAS RESTLESSLY SOUGHT TO GO FASTER.
The immutable laws of physics that govern speed are simple. Our
tool of choice to challenge these boundaries is the application of
engineering efficiency.
In 2004, Roland Gumpert of Audi AG established a car company
with the singular intent of creating the world’s fastest car. In 2005,
he delivered the Gumpert Apollo.
Apollo’s efficiency is born of its German engineering origins, which
blends speed and efficiency, form and function, and ultimately is
more than science. It is the paradoxical combination of pure
German engineering and fine art. And we share these results with
you, taking form as the purest expression of engineering in our cars.
The Apollo hypercar was born on the Nurburgring and will always
be honed on its curves, designed to master its straights. It is where
we belong with a heart that beats with a German purity of purpose.
Our purity of purpose means the driver is at the heart of car,
unimpeded by artifice. The records Apollo broke are undeniable,
the new milestones we will achieve are unfathomable.
A decade after the Apollo shook the world by stealth and surprise,
a new chapter has begun in the car maker’s history: a new technical
centre in Denkendorf in Upper Bavaria, an impressive international
network of showrooms and most importantly, an extraordinary
new hypercar.
We will not rest until we have pushed the boundary of engineering
and performance to its breaking point. We are, and will always be, a
force in the restive advance of performance, and for us as engineers,
this is reason enough.
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A N E W C H A P T E R
AFTER A PERIOD OF RE-ORGANISATION, THE ARROW IS HERE TO
RE-ESTABLISH APOLLO’S PRE-EMINENCE AS THE MAKER OF THE FASTEST
CARS IN THE WORLD, DELIVERED THROUGH THE RIGOUR AND PRECISION
OF LOW-VOLUME, HIGH-CRAFT GERMAN ENGINEERING.
While the Arrow marks a new chapter for Apollo, the philosophy
that drives us is unchanged. A car that overcomes its mass through
aerodynamics will accelerate, corner, and even slow down, faster.
Our reverence for this law of dynamics informs everything we do.
So the Arrow, as a mid-engined car, uses the race track as
its reference. In its most extreme expression, our new car
indeed requires the skill of a race driver to unearth its ultimate
performance and for that we make no apology. We have never
aimed to please the timid.
With a uniformity of purpose and an unchanged engineering
philosophy, our starting point for the Arrow has been to take
the extraordinary basis for the Gumpert Apollo and completely
re-invent it, both visually and at the core of engineering.
With a completely new drivetrain that meets Euro6 regulations
and a fundamental re-design of the cockpit and aerodynamically-led
re-profiling, the Gumpert Apollo’s provenance is hinted at in the
Arrow. The genetic code remains, but has been re-expressed to
make a claim for supremacy in today’s world order of hypercars.
Apollo’s world is by virtue, small and select. We build few cars and
can only share our work with but a handful of people, but we welcome
the prospect of you sharing in the next chapter of our history.
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A P O L L O N
Despite a history of excellence in automotive engineering, Germany
lacked a genuine hypercar manufacturer capable of challenging the Italian
hegemony of Ferrari, Lamborghini and Pagani. Apollo – and its antecedent,
Gumpert – seeks to apply the precision of German engineering philosophy
to the ultimate expression of automotive performance.
The company’s first car was conceived in the rarified research environments
of the Technical University of Munich and the Ingolstadt University
of Applied Sciences before taking form in the company’s factory in
Altenburg. The result took the world by storm.
Based on a mid-engined configuration underpinned by a tubular chromoly
frame and integrated carbon monocoque, the Gumpert Apollo S broke
cover in 2005 and soon after made good on its intent by securing an award
from Sport Auto for the fastest lap ever recorded by a street legal road car
on the 21km Nordschleife in a time of 7m 11.57s.
The Apollo underwent a series of iterations and variants, progressively
evolving the performance envelope while staying true to its engineering
tenets of aerodynamically-informed surface profiling, road-optimised
weight distribution and a track & wheelbase ratio designed to best use
the prodigious power from the V8 bi-turbo engine.
Roland Gumpert leads a team of engineers integral in the past, present
and future development of Apollo. One of their superlative achievements –
upgrading the Apollo Enraged to the new Apollo N.
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A R R OW
E N G I N E E R I N G P R I N C I P L E S
Our first concern is for the safety of our drivers and passengers. As
the performance of our cars is increased, we ensure that the safety
threshold matches every kilometre gained in speed. For this reason,
we believe the only chassis construction method that delivers the
safety demanded of hypercars is by combining the dual technologies
of a chromoly frame with an integral carbon monocoque.
Our technical layout is informed by race car dynamics, and the
Arrow remains true to Apollo tradition of mid-engined platforms
that offer the very best dynamic behaviour under yaw, pitch and
mass transfer under steer.
With these two tenets established, the final principle is that the
car’s dynamic performance under acceleration, braking and
cornering can be optimised if the mass is overcome by inherent
aerodynamics. So we aimed to design a light car, with a target dry
weight of 1200kg ensuring that downforce performance at a set
velocity allows this mass to be neutralised, thereby enabling all
dynamic performance to be unfettered, fluid and highly responsive.
Visually, the Arrow is a completely re-considered car, reflecting
ten years of advancement in computational fluid dynamics. This
results in a radically different aerodynamic treatment – while
being aesthetically striking – we have exponentially improved
drag/downforce ratios and enhanced cooling performance.
THE ARROW IS FIRMLY ROOTED, LIKE ITS APOLLO ANTECEDENTS, IN
SOME ENGINEERING FUNDAMENTALS THAT HAVE COME TO DEFINE
THE WAY WE BELIEVE A HYPERCAR SHOULD BE CONCEIVED.
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The engine is completely new. The 4.0 litre V8 bi-turbo meets the
demanding Euro6 emissions standards and adopts latest fluid-based
intercooler management. The new generation engine is matched to
a completely re-designed lightweight 7-speed gearbox.
Revisions to the chassis fore and fuel cell aft have provided for an
increase in cabin space, with the adjustable range for the driver’s
seating now sufficient to accommodate drivers up to 2m tall. The
sill depth has been dropped to make entry and exit from the cabin
easier, all of which conspires to make the cockpit comfortable and
straightforward, in turn adding to the appeal of a high performance
car that can be used every day.
Usability is key to the Arrow being at once exotic and simultaneously
a pleasure to use, with refinements ranging from powered windows
to ESP, ABS, sat nav and air conditioning standard in almost all
specifications, with the concession to absolute performance not
conditional upon comfort or utility.
The ultimate benchmark our engineers set themselves in designing
the Arrow was to respond to the full range of dynamic challenges that
are encountered on the open road from transfer of weight through
complex cambers and multiple event braking performance to high
speed corner stability. Such a diversity of dynamic tests can only be
found in one location – on the 21km of the Nordschleife.
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M OV I N G W H E N STA N D I N G ST I L L
T H E A R R OW BY D E S I G N
The Arrow’s softer styling cues are less aggressive, but remain
wholly conditioned by the same aerodynamic principles that drove
the original design – send as much air over the surface geometries
as possible, none underneath and just the required volume to satisfy
cooling needs through the car.
However, as rigorously applied as these aerodynamic conditions
are, the Arrow is not merely the result of optimised aero-influenced
design. The car’s designers explain, “Often an over-dependence
on aero-led styling results in a car that has been created through
computational fluid dynamics – the computing tools we use to
optimise downforce/drag ratios – and this can result in designs that
have as much sensitivity as a concerto written by a computer.”
LAUDED FOR ITS BRUTALITY OF STYLING IN ITS ORIGINAL
FORM, THE UK’S AUTOCAR MAGAZINE DESCRIBED THE FIRST
GENERATION OF THE APOLLO IN 2005 AS “A CONTENDER IN
THE PANTHEON OF TERRIFYING SIGHTS.”
11. So human intervention becomes essential, and our philosophy when
confronted with a design brief that has a high aerodynamic threshold
to pass is to turn to mother-nature. The cues that can be borrowed
from animal or plant life are almost always design-efficient, and when
looking at optimised conditions to move through fluids, sharks happen
to deliver both an aesthetic and a mechanical efficiency to marvel at,
and there are plenty of influences from the ocean’s primary predator
in the Arrow.
Naturally, it is important to create a sense of lineage from the 2005
design by retaining certain key attributes from the original car. The
sill depth, the gull-wing doors and the central air-intake ram were the
key signature items of the original car, so these have been carefully
preserved and blended with the new design treatment, which wraps,
fore and aft, around a re-design of the cockpit for taller drivers.
The new Apollo design treatment, inspired by the carnivorous
ruthlessness of the ocean, is important not just for the Arrow, but
also to set a tonal approach for Apollo as it looks forward. Consumers
today all have a highly sensitised response to design and instinctively
begin to relate cues that originate from a single philosophy. For our
designers, the design that heralded the re-birth of Apollo is crucial
as it will have defining influence over the style of the cars that follow.
Most importantly, the fluidity of the design, like a shark, gives the
Arrow the appearance of motion even when it stands still.
THE FLUIDITY OF THE DESIGN, LIKE A SHARK, GIVES THE ARROW
THE APPEARANCE OF MOTION EVEN WHEN IT STANDS STILL
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