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What is it?

A direct challenger to Porsche’s brilliant Cayman S, produced by a German company that you’ve almost certainly never heard of.

A tough assignment: but bear in mind that the Artega is backed by the multi-millionaire owner of a major motor industry component supplier, it’s been designed by Henrik Fisker (late of Aston Martin) and the bloke bringing it to market is Karl-Heinz Kalbfell, the guy behind BMW’s best M-series cars, plus Mini, Rolls-Royce and lots of other...Read the full article

 Well it looks good and is over 200kg lighter than the lotus eagle.  I love Lotus and the whole small light cars with smallish engines to go as quick as the bigger sports cars, but it looks as though these guys have beaten them.  Be intersting to see the sale price, if it comes in right hook and also the proper reivews.

But although it's got a naff colour (is that magnolia??) in these shots, it does look very nice.

We need more sports cars named after South American revolutionaries!

Very, very impressive.  Now, where's that waiting list...

Autocar:

it’s been designed by Henrik Fisker

Fisker, please tell me he's not the same guy who grafts those bloody awful noses on to the front of BMW 6 series and the like?!?!?

If it is, then run for cover when face lifted model comes out!!!

That said, I do like it!

Why can Lotus nat make a car like this rather than a bigger plastic elise

TegTypeR:

Autocar:

it’s been designed by Henrik Fisker

Fisker, please tell me he's not the same guy who grafts those bloody awful noses on to the front of BMW 6 series and the like?!?!?

 
Glad I'm not the only one  who doesn't like some of Fisker's designs.  So saying, the Karma looks pretty damn good overall - apart from front grill treatment - and the Artega looked terrific in all previous pics apart from these, where the pale yellow, or 'magnolia' or a shade of beige makes it look.... hmmmm.  But in all previous pics it's always looked better than a Cayman.  Or Lotus Eagle.....  I'd go for it if it was as good to drive as look at.  Roll on the full review.....

This goes to show that a group of talented decently backed ($) engineers can get together

without killing themselves and build a better (at least by indications) car than just about anyone. Why is this? Because some industry insiders have figured out that if you don't need a multibillion dollar investment in thousands of workers in design, aero, engines, marketing  etc that it just comes down to designing a brilliant chassis. And this is where an independent can out do a mainstream maker. Better design, materials and build in the area where it counts most.

Hopefully this will be the future of the sports car. We need not any longer have Ferrari, Lambo, and Porsche as our only choices. Really its taken too long.

memyselfandi:

But although it's got a naff colour (is that magnolia??) in these shots, it does look very nice.

'vanilla yellow'.

http://www.artega.de/index.php?a=127

RobotBoogie:

We need more sports cars named after South American revolutionaries!

Daniel Ortega(President of Nicaragua)? Central American, sí ?

Beowolf:

Artega looked terrific in all previous pics apart from these, where the pale yellow, or 'magnolia' or a shade of beige makes it look.... hmmmm.  But in all previous pics it's always looked better than a Cayman.  Or Lotus Eagle.....  I'd go for it if it was as good to drive as look at.  Roll on the full review.....

Magnolia(Vanillegelb) colour limited to 'Intro 2008' 99-off series. Artega GT 'volume' model(500 tops a year) has red, blue, black, white and grey:  http://www.artega.de/index.php?a=132

"Roll on full review:

'PDF's of recent auto mag reviews: http://www.artega.de/index.php?a=143

'Autobild' 4/7/2008  http://www.artega.de/uploads/_dokumente/04072008_AutoBild_Voltreffer.pdf

'Auto Motor und Sport' 3/7/2008 http://www.artega.de/uploads/_dokumente/03072008AutoMotorSport_Flunder_schoen.pdf

'Autocar' 16/7/2008 http://www.artega.de/uploads/_dokumente/AUTOCAR_16072008.pdf

Hey!  Thanks for the links!  Checked them all out like a good little internetter.

The Artega looked really good in silver and white, and, believe it or not, I'm usually a big fan of yellow: just this pale shade looks like out of date custard!  There's a lot of pics of this magnolia vanilla custard shade in the articles, so maybe it looks a lot better in the flesh.  On my monitor at least, it looks yuck.

Only one of the articles - in two places - is in English, of Cropley's ride in it at Goodwood.  The rest are in German, of which I really do not read.  Thanks very much for the links though, much appreciated.  I wonder what it looks like in fiery red??  Hold on.... nope can't find one...

Sounds as though it's already got the thumbs up from everyone though, me included ;-0)