Simply Abu Dhabi XXXV

2 4 5 S I M P LY A B U DH A B I I taly, the spiritual home of the supercar with manufacturers such as Ferrari, Lamborghini and Pagani has a new player that, quite simply, has trumped them all. Pininfarina has been a familiar name as an independent designer of svelte- looking cars for the big players for more than 90 years and they’ve decided to branch out on their own to create a complete car for the first time. The Pininfarina Battista delivers blisteringly quick performance which not only leaves its established competitors gasping, but even, according to the company, outperforms a modern Formula One car. Not surprisingly there is a touch of Ferrari in its looks as the company has designed more than 60 Ferraris, but the Battista’s figures of 1,900bhp and 2,300Nm of torque with a zero to 100km/h time of 1.9 seconds and a 350km/h top speed makes it the fastest, most powerful road car ever to come from Italy. The catch? It’s electric. With its 120-kWh T-shaped battery pack providing power to electric motors mounted inside each wheel, they claim it will get 450km between charges which should equate to driving from Abu Dhabi to Dubai and back twice from this zero emission supercar. “We believe there is a soft spot for this car,” Luca Borgogno, Design Director for Automobili Pininfarina said. “By being effectively a new brand to the supercar scene, it has made it possible to go straight to EV. We don’t have the constraints of the likes of Porsche or Ferrari where they have to build something that resembles a 911 or a 488 and with all respect because I like Porsche and Ferrari, but for us this is a great advantage.”