Arrinera set out in 2008 to build the first supercar developed in Poland. Its name means truly streamlined, its car is named after the hussar cavalry, and its badge is a feathered silver spearhead.
- Country
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Poland - Active
- Since 2008
- Website
- Official website ↗
A supercar from a country without one
Poland had never built a supercar. Arrinera set out to change that. The company was founded in 2008, and in August 2012 it revealed the Hussarya, a mid-engined V8 car that it had spent fourteen months designing. Tests were run with the Warsaw University of Technology, including aerodynamic work at a simulated 360 kph, and the two rear spoilers doubled as air brakes above 150 kph.
The man fronting the project was Łukasz Tomkiewicz, the company’s chief executive. In 2014 the firm’s holding company, Arrinera Automotive Holding PLC, listed on the GXG Markets exchange in London, and the car was being assembled in Kobyłka, just outside Warsaw. British designer Lee Noble set up and optimised the suspension.
Two names, two languages
Arrinera is not a Polish word. According to Tomkiewicz, it comes from Basque and Italian and translates as “truly streamlined”. The model name is the Polish part. Hussarya is an old spelling of husaria, the winged hussar cavalry that led Polish armies from the 16th to the 18th century. Polish press soon had a simpler nickname for the car: the Polish Ferrari.
A feathered spearhead
The Arrinera emblem is a tall, pointed metallic shape, something like a spearhead, split down the middle and flanked on both sides by slender feather-like blades that fan outwards. In the official artwork it is rendered in brushed silver and chrome. Beneath it, or to its right in the horizontal version, sits the ARRINERA wordmark in wide, angular capitals.
Arrinera has not published an explanation of the badge. The popular reading is that the blades are the wings of a Polish hussar, which would fit the Hussarya name, but that is a theory, not something the company has stated.
Colour has mostly been a question of bodywork rather than badge. The Hussarya GT ran at Goodwood in 2016 in a light-blue livery that Arrinera said honoured the Polish pilots who flew RAF fighters in the Battle of Britain, and the company lists Cumulus White, Goodwood Blue and Zborowski Green as its official finishes.
From Warsaw to the Goodwood hill
Arrinera is really the story of one car and its racing offspring.
The Hussarya, step by step
- 2012: Hussarya. The road car revealed in August 2012, with a limited first run of 33 cars announced as the 33 Series.
- 2016: Hussarya GT. An FIA GT3-specification racer with a GM LS7 V8 and a Hewland sequential gearbox, built in Cambridgeshire, England. It made its world debut at Autosport International in Birmingham in January 2016 and that summer became the first Polish supercar to run at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.
- 2017: Hussarya GT at Goodwood. On 2 July 2017 former BTCC driver Anthony Reid took the car up the Goodwood hill in 48.28 seconds, fourth in the Sunday Shootout. Arrinera counts it as a GT class win.
The engine is American: a 7.0-litre LS7 V8 from General Motors. On the Goodwood hill, Arrinera says, the car outpaced a Porsche 911 GT3 Cup. And the brand the Polish press borrowed for its nickname has a page of its own: Ferrari. For more on how badges like these are put together, see how car logos are designed.
Frequently asked questions
What does the Arrinera logo mean?
Arrinera has not published an official explanation. The emblem is a pointed metallic shape with feather-like blades on either side, above the ARRINERA wordmark. Many people read the blades as hussar wings, echoing the Hussarya name, but the company has not confirmed that.
What does the name Arrinera mean?
According to chief executive Łukasz Tomkiewicz, the word comes from Basque and Italian and translates as “truly streamlined”.
Where does the name Hussarya come from?
It is an old spelling of husaria, the Polish winged hussar cavalry of the 16th to 18th centuries. Arrinera chose it as the model name for its supercar.
Was the Hussarya really Poland’s first supercar?
Arrinera describes the Hussarya GT as the first supercar developed in Poland, and in 2016 it became the first Polish supercar to run at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.
From Warsaw to Goodwood: the Hussarya sheet
- Founded
- 2008
- Country
- Poland
- Headquarters
- Warsaw, Poland
- Current emblem
- A pointed silver spearhead flanked by feather-like blades, above the ARRINERA wordmark
- Known for
- The Hussarya, the first supercar developed in Poland
- Website
- Official website ↗