The Vulcano’s Coke-bottle shape is obvious from this overhead shot (click above to enlarge), but there’s not much else we can make out on the car penned by French designer Samuel Chaffart, who previously designed cars for Nissan and Jaguar-Land Rover. As for the super part of this supercar, the Vulcano has a front-mounted V12 paired with some arrangement of electric motors to produce up to 900 horsepower. Icona doesn’t specify how the electric motors are used and doesn’t refer to the car as a hybrid, but it does say that the two-seater can reach a top speed of 217 miles per hour and that it can accelerate to 124 mph in under 10 seconds.
Feel free to peruse the press release below.
A one-off supersports car, coachbuilt in Italy and designed by Icona, the Italian design house based in Shanghai
Italy, 21 March 2013: Icona reveals the first teaser of the Icona Vulcano (iconavulcano.com). This new supercar will be revealed at the Shanghai Auto Show next April.
The Icona Vulcano brings together different skills and expertise of a very Italian tradition. The powertrain is the work of well-known Claudio Lombardi, former powertrain technical director of Ferrari and mastermind of numerous world champion cars: a front engine V12 two-door two-seater car, reaching up to 900 horsepower through a masterful combination of combustion engine and electric motors. The top speed will be around 350 km/h, and 0-200 km/h will be under ten seconds.
Alongside its astonishing performance and pedigree, the design of the Icona Vulcano is an evolution of the very advanced form language which was first introduced on the Icona Fuselage concept in 2011 by Samuel Chuffart, Icona’s design director. The aim of the design approach is to express the amazing capabilities of this extremely powerful car, while maintaining harmonious and generous shapes: bringing together the Beauty and the Beast.
Talented young French designer Samuel Chuffart brings exceptional international experience to his role as design director of Icona. During his eight year tenure at Nissan Design in Europe and the US, Mr. Chuffart played an instrumental role in the creation and realization of the Nissan DNA which is known today. Mr. Chuffart then moved to Jaguar-Land Rover, before being selected for the position of Chief Designer at a leading design house in Italy in 2008, successfully developing numerous production cars soon to be seen on the road.
Claudio Lombardi is one of the most successful Italian motor engineers: racing director of Lancia that won seven World Rally Championships with 037 Rally and Delta S4 from 1982 to 1991, powertrain technical director of Ferrari for Formula One and GT cars from 1991 to 2000, and project leader of Aprilia to win the Superbike World Championship in 2010 with Max Biaggi, using one of the most powerful and light engines ever developed in its category. In the last two years Lombardi founded AIPA to develop different powertrain concepts to make the most of the combination of combustion engines and electric motors for innovative integral powertrain.
