A former Audi Sport chief, a griffin badge and one car, the Apollo, that topped the Top Gear lap board in 2008. Gumpert lasted less than a decade before returning as Apollo Automobil.
- Country
-
Germany - Active
- 2004 to 2016
- Founded by
- Roland Gumpert
- Website
- Official website ↗
An Audi rally boss builds his own supercar
Roland Gumpert spent most of his working life at Audi. He joined in 1969 as a test engineer, ran the Audi Sport department from 1981, and was the driving force behind the all-wheel-drive cars that led to the first Audi quattro in 1980. In the 1970s he had also helped develop the four-wheel-drive Volkswagen Iltis. Under his leadership Audi collected four World Rally Championship titles.
In the mid-1980s he was asked to create a mid-engined quattro. That car never got built the way he imagined it. He kept the idea. After leaving Audi in 2001, he was approached by Roland Mayer of the Audi tuner MTM about building a sports car. Gumpert said yes, on one condition: it had to be a real car, built for series production, not a one-off.
Gumpert Sportwagenmanufaktur GmbH began operations in 2004. Its home was Altenburg, in Thuringia, in the far east of Germany, a long way from the supercar capitals. The company carries its founder’s surname, and the car was called Apollo. Two prototypes were on the road by January 2005. In March 2005 the red development car finished third at the Divinol Cup at Hockenheim on its first attempt, and series production started in Altenburg late that year.
The griffin on the nose
The Gumpert badge shows a griffin, the mythical creature with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle, with the GUMPERT name set above it on a shield-shaped emblem. The company never published a detailed explanation of why it chose the creature, so we won’t invent one. Autoblog, driving the Apollo S in 2010, noted that the griffin has no real connection to Apollo, the Greek god whose name the car borrowed. The same review links the model name as much to the Apollo space programme as to mythology.
Everything under the badge was far less mysterious. The Apollo ran a 4.2-litre twin-turbo V8 sourced from Audi, reworked by Gumpert with dry-sump lubrication and new injection, driving the rear wheels through a sequential six-speed gearbox. The aerodynamics were honed in Audi’s wind tunnel.
When the brand was reborn as Apollo Automobil in 2016, the Gumpert name and the griffin left the car. The new company uses a badge of its own, built around the Apollo name.
Insolvency, a Hong Kong buyer and a new name
The Apollo was fast. Sales were not. Gumpert filed for insolvency in 2012 after missing its sales targets, and was looking for investment to enter the Chinese market. A backer who could have saved the company pulled out, and on 30 August 2013, one year after the filing, German media reported that Gumpert was bankrupt.
The rescue came from Hong Kong. In January 2016 the investor group Ideal TeamVenture, which had also bought the rights to the De Tomaso name, took over Gumpert and renamed the company Apollo Automobil GmbH. Roland Gumpert’s name was dropped from the business, and by June 2016 the company said he no longer had any role in its projects.
Few cars, big lap times
Gumpert built one model in its own name, and it spent its short life setting records. Its successors under the Apollo badge have kept the track-first attitude.
Landmark Gumperts and Apollos, year by year
- 2005: Apollo. The first customer car was delivered in 2005, the year series production began in Altenburg.
- 2008: Apollo on Top Gear. In the episode first broadcast on 27 July 2008, the Stig lapped the show’s test track in 1:17.1, taking the top spot on the Power Lap board. It held it for two years, until the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport.
- Apollo Sport at the Nurburgring. Driven by touring car racer Florian Gruber, an Apollo Sport lapped the Nordschleife in 7 minutes 11.57 seconds.
- 2010: Tornante. A second model, announced in 2010, that never reached production.
- 2016: Apollo Arrow. The first car of the renamed company, shown at the Geneva motor show in March 2016 on the Apollo’s platform.
- 2017: Apollo Intensa Emozione. Revealed in late 2017: a naturally aspirated 6.3-litre V12, no turbos, no hybrid, ten cars, co-developed with HWA, the firm behind Mercedes-AMG’s DTM programme.
- 2021: Apollo Project EVO. Presented in Shanghai on 5 November 2021 as the successor to the Intensa Emozione.
Apollo Automobil is based in Denkendorf, Bavaria, and today belongs to the Apollo Future Mobility Group. Its lineage runs straight back to Audi, through its founder and through the engine of the original Apollo. For other German manufacturers that build sports cars in tiny numbers, see Wiesmann, and for the big names, Porsche and BMW. For more on how badges like the griffin come together, read how car logos are designed.
Frequently asked questions
What is on the Gumpert logo?
A griffin, a mythical creature with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle, beneath the GUMPERT name on a shield-shaped badge. The company never published an official explanation of the symbol.
Who founded Gumpert?
Roland Gumpert, a former head of Audi Sport whose rally programme won four World Rally Championship titles. His company, Gumpert Sportwagenmanufaktur GmbH, began operations in Altenburg, Germany, in 2004.
Does Gumpert still exist?
Not under that name. Gumpert went bankrupt in August 2013. In January 2016 the Hong Kong investor group Ideal TeamVenture bought the company and renamed it Apollo Automobil, which went on to build the Apollo Arrow and the Intensa Emozione.
Is the Gumpert Apollo an Audi?
No, but it is closely related. Its 4.2-litre twin-turbo V8 was sourced from Audi and reworked by Gumpert, its aerodynamics were developed in Audi’s wind tunnel, and its founder spent more than thirty years at the company.
The Apollo file: Gumpert facts
- Founded
- 2004
- Founder
- Roland Gumpert
- Country
- Germany
- Headquarters
- Altenburg, Germany
- Parent company
- Ideal TeamVenture (owner since 2016, as Apollo Automobil)
- Current emblem
- A griffin beneath the GUMPERT name on a shield-shaped badge, used from 2004 until the 2016 rename to Apollo
- Known for
- The Apollo twin-turbo V8 supercar
- Status
- Defunct
- Website
- Official website ↗
