Wiesmann is back. It’s back electric with the Project Thunderball, a zero-emission car that will go into production in 2024. We went to Dulmen, where the famous headquarters “Geko” (an animal that is also the symbol of the brand) is located, to see the car in a static preview in the presence of Roheen Berry, a London entrepreneur who took over the company from the brink of bankruptcy and relaunched it, and Andreas Kurbos, founder of the homonymous design studio, who took care of the styling.
Since the very beginning, Wiesmann has created sports cars (spiders and coupés) with two seats and a retro look. Since always, the bodywork is characterized by soft, rounded lines, a long front bonnet and a set-back passenger compartment. The same setting can also be seen on Project Thunderball (the name is not definitive), which updates the typical look of the brand without distorting it. The electric sports car features a “three-island” front end, with the central one occupied by the inverted drop-shaped grille and the side ones, now with an unprecedented carbon finish, which house the headlights. On the rear remain the undeniable circular lights: they are placed on the sides of the posterior which, to acquire importance and streamline the line, ends in a ducktail silhouette.
On board you can breathe an air of other times. The passenger compartment is imbued with the charm of the sports cars of the past. With attention to the smallest details, it alternates natural-coloured leather upholstery with more modern inserts in brushed aluminum and carbon fibre. The choice of completely analog instruments combined with two displays placed behind the steering wheel and in the center of the dashboard is right. Some very personal solutions are also convincing: the key housing in the central tunnel (it is fixed thanks to a magnet) or example, or the door opening system. The new Wiesmann, exotic and connoisseur supercar, wants to maintain that deep connection with the driver even in its zero-emission version. However – the first in the Company’s more than thirty-year history – it presents an electrically operated soft top. Because an extra touch of comfort doesn’t hurt.
