Gumpert Apollo Sport sets Nurburgring lap record

Apollo Sport breaks road car record with a 7m11.57s lap time around the Nürburgring-Nordschleife track

By Alex Ricciuti
August 18, 2009 4:45 PM
Filed Under: German, Nürburgring, Specialty Marques, Supercars

The Gumpert Apollo Sport has set a new lap record for a road-legal production car at the Nürburgring-Nordschleife track as timed and reported by German magazine Sport-Auto.

The Audi-powered Apollo Sport was piloted by 26 year-old driver Florian Gruber on August 13th as the record time of exactly 7m11.57s was set. According to Sport-Auto the record was previously held by Michael Düchting clocking in 7m14.89s on a Donkervoort D8 RS06 in November 2005. However, if our memory serves correctly, wasn't it the Radical SR8 in road legal trim that clocked 6m55s?

The 700 hp of the car is provided by a 4.2 liter, bi-turbo V8 engine supplied by Audi. It propels the Gumpert Apollo from 0 to 200 km/h in 8.9 seconds and gives the car a top speed of 360 km/h.

Roland Gumpert, a former VW executive, started Gumpert back in 2004 in order to create track-ready and track-worthy supercars that were also street legal.

Road tests for the Apollo Sport are scheduled for mid-September. A release date has not yet been announced.

Source: sportauto-online.de via auto-motor-und-sport.de

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Tags: Gumpert Apollo Speed, Apollo Sport

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Comments

Citizen_Cake

August 18, 2009 4:59 PM

Shame it can't run fast enough away from its own looks.

bakrione

August 18, 2009 8:24 PM

or its name!

scratchy996

August 18, 2009 10:37 PM

looks are subjective, i like this smurf. paint it matte black and it looks like a weapon. and i like the name, it sounds medieval, it fits with the car's hardcore nature.

scratchy996

August 18, 2009 5:00 PM

no surprise there. the Radical RS8 is faster but i think it isn't street legal in all of Europe.

catchmyshadow

August 18, 2009 11:22 PM

The Radical doesn´t have a german street legal licence only a less stringent british single car approval.

GRAVE

August 18, 2009 5:01 PM

Impressive, around 12 second faster than the ZR1!

vertigobike

August 18, 2009 5:02 PM

I think this record-setting races on Nurburgring will end when someone dies :-( Who the hell cares if car X is faster some seconds than car Y? Will you really buy a supercar just for this?... c' mon! Obrigado

bakrione

August 18, 2009 8:27 PM

the companies build the cars for the purpose of speed, so they obviously care if they win the (unannounced) competition!

xLumino

August 18, 2009 9:59 PM

I agree, this is like a race-competition of street-legal cars and it's absolutely ok. it's the same, manufactories do in motorsport series.

The Gumpert Apollo is a really amazing project. Good luck to that small company for the future..

Swifty

August 18, 2009 5:11 PM

@vertigobike

many people die trying set their best lap on Nur! before you enter Nur you sign up somekind of deal that if you die this is your guilt! aproximately 12 people die per year in Nur!

so there won't be changed nothing!

bye

catchmyshadow

August 18, 2009 6:19 PM

The GUMPERT in one word: HARDCORE

nickmini

August 18, 2009 7:48 PM

This thing is as ugly and quick as hell.

carcrazy1234

August 18, 2009 7:57 PM

yup usually the ugly cars are the fastest cars around haha.

benzboy

August 18, 2009 8:53 PM

I find these cars funny and rediculous. When you get to a certain age or achieve some sort of finacial success, whatever, you dont need to prove anything to anyone, you know what you can and your car can do. Let the morons who have to prove something to someone or themselves take the stupid risks. I'll just keep movin along in my SL 63 and be totally content with it.

scratchy996

August 18, 2009 9:49 PM

with all respect, but i can say the same thing about the SL , it's pretty much as phallic as it gets.

i think Apollo clients are serious people who don't need a Lamborghini or a SLR to pose around. there are rich people who actually have a passion for driving (the FIA GT3 drivers/owners for example) and they like a car they can drive to the track and back.maybe they want a challenge greater than their Scuderia or GT3-RS.

anyway, this car is hardcore, i'm sure posers won't touch it.

Edited by user on August 18, 2009 at 9:51 PM

HEMI426

August 18, 2009 9:26 PM

You can hardly call this a road car

scratchy996

August 18, 2009 9:37 PM

why is that, because it is fast ?

xLumino

August 18, 2009 10:03 PM

it's a roadcar 'cause it has a hard-to-get-german-street-license...

contact_edward

August 18, 2009 10:12 PM

I agree HEMI... It seems that many small companies find that they can build what is basically a prototype racecar (a lot like the DP's in the Rolex Series) but put a street-legal engine in it. With today's boosted engines 700+hp in street legal form is easy. This is no great achievement IMHO. To these guys, it's all about who's balls are bigger and who can get the headlines with silly #'s--no craftsmanship with these cars--just look at the body panel seams. Anybody can snap body panels onto a tube-frame.

scratchy996

August 18, 2009 10:18 PM

contact_edward , i agree , they should be ashamed. like what's the deal with winning Le Mans ? you just build a prototype and put a big engine in it. piece of cake. i'm tired of these small companies pushing engineering to the limits.

Edited by user on August 18, 2009 at 10:21 PM

catchmyshadow

August 18, 2009 10:25 PM

Roland Gumpert = Ex-Audi-motorsports-head and chief engineer

astroturf777

August 19, 2009 12:19 PM

easier to get german roadworthy if you're a german company...

dbehmoaras

August 19, 2009 1:33 AM

That's not even the R! Imagine how fast the version with 800bhp would go.

scratchy996

August 19, 2009 2:39 AM

can't wait until they find a driver crazy enough to try the R version :)

moodyaaa

August 19, 2009 1:40 AM

i agree ,, i think u can hardly ride it in normal roads. but am impressived !! big numbers.

GHERNAS

August 19, 2009 12:25 PM

it need to survive!!

contact_edward

August 19, 2009 6:28 PM

Scratchy, engineering limits? I doubt it. But the fallacy is not in the car itself, but the fact that the car is marketed as a useable street machine (equal and comparable to the other supercars of today). It is not comparable. If it were, I guess Ferrari, Lambo, Porsche, etc. wasted millions upon millions developing their cars. Oh, small companies? I guess Pagani has been wasting their time too.

scratchy996

August 20, 2009 5:02 PM

the engineers that worked on this car also worked on the le Mans Audis and the boss is the former Audi motorsport chief, they know their sh!t. the Audi engineers needed Audi's approval to use their Le Mans know-how in building this car. also small companies doesn't mean bad cars and low tech engineering.

sometimes small companies build better products and go to the limit because they are free to do what they want , they don't have a horde of shareholders telling them what to do.

btw , the Apollo is as street usable if not even more than an Enzo, a Masetari MC12,a Zonda ,or a Murcielago, a SLR Stirling Moss, a Viper ACR or an Ascari A10.

Pagani are really good, but they sacrifice performance for style and their engine is not as powerful as the Apollo's. not to mention they don't have the engineers that won Le Mans 8 times in the last decade.

i suggest you inform yourself before posting

contact_edward

August 20, 2009 9:45 PM

Now, now, no need to get testy... It's not my fault that I don't have your source of info. I couldn't find anything quite as detailed as your info on the car's history--other than their own website. Care to indulge me with your source? Anyway, I cringe when you so easily connect the Apollo's heritage with Audi's victories at Le Mans, or so easily claim that it's more steet usable than an Enzo or Murcielago, etc. Perhaps it is. Side thought: the Enzo featured many advanced technologies and innovations inside and out. Is the Apollo more advanced? Who knows? Oh well, I'm ignorant, so what the hell do I know. I'll happily concede nonetheless and give the little Gumpert an "A" for effort. Thanks for setting me straight :-)

Edited by user on August 20, 2009 at 9:50 PM

scratchy996

August 21, 2009 12:20 AM

German TV stations have some really nice car shows,with in depth interviews with engineers, car designers and test drivers. they are more based on facts and technical details than the British "funny" car shows.

one example why the Apollo is so hardcore is it's chassis, average supercars have 27KN/degree torsional rigidity, a F1 car has 44KN , the Apollo has 40KN. the innovations in the Apollo are not electronic in nature like in a Ferrari , but mechanical , like in a Porsche.

Edited by user on August 21, 2009 at 12:24 AM

justbored

August 21, 2009 11:45 PM

On facts ? They're even more biased when it comes to test a car of the Volkswagen AG than Top Gear would be when comparing a Lotus with a Tata Nano.

catchmyshadow

August 19, 2009 11:15 PM

here is the video of that lap:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIXK3vsiLkw&feature=related