Production Begins: 217 MPH Pininfarina Battista

July 18, 20222 years ago Jo Borras 0 Comments

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It’s the most powerful, all-electric hypercar designed by the people who created hypercars in the first place. Meet the Pininfarina Battista!

What’s all that about “the people who created the hypercar?” Let me try to explain – see, way back in the before time, pre-1987, there were a few supercars, sure. A Lamborghini Countach here, a Porsche 930 there, and maybe even Magnum P.I.’s Ferrari (if you’re too young to know who that is, ask your mom). All nice cars, all reasonably fast, but very much of their era. Then, in 1987, Ferrari Launched the F40, and all that changed.

That car was unlike anything yet seen in its day. It had a Formula 1-style monocoque chassis, carbon fiber bits, lightweight composites, and a computer-controlled, turbocharged V8 engine. Depending on who you asked, that Ferrari would go from 0-60 in about 3.8 seconds and pull all the way to a 197 MPH top speed (or 201, if you ask Ferrari). Very neat stuff, but it was the towering rear wing that would burn the F40 into the hearts and minds of young car enthusiasts. You can see for yourself how pretty it was …

So Pretty

… and almost every inch of that prettiness was styled by Pininfarina.

Pininfarina isn’t a person, though – it’s a company. More accurately, a design house. Named after its founder, Battista “Pinin” Farina, the company is responsible for dozens of great-looking, iconic cars, and it’s stayed in the family. After changing their last name to “Pininfarina,” Battista’s son, Sergio, ran the firm until 2001, until his son took over, etc.

So, here we are in 2022, and Pininfarina has designed another groundbreaking hypercar. This time, though, it’s not wearing Ferrari’s logo – they’re going it alone. And, as for the car goes? It stands alone, too.

There’s almost nothing you can say about the Pininfarina Battista hypercar that doesn’t sound made up. It accelerates from 0-60 MPH in well under 2.0 seconds, for example. Maybe you can wrap your head around that bit of trivia, but have you experienced it? The car’s top speed, 217 MPH, is another mind-bender — and, before the Tesla contingent chimes in, the Battista is electronically limited to 217 MPH, with claims of 250+ MPH seeming to the least “made up” of the claims swirling around this car.

It’s a thing, in other words. And now, too, it is a very real thing. Production of the $2 million exotic has officially begun at the tiny, 7,500 sq. ft. space in Cambiano, Italy, into a for-real production line where a team of 10 talented craftspeople will hand-build each of the 150 pre-sold Battista cars in 1,250 hours (plus an additional 90 hours of work for the hand-applied paint finish).

For context, it takes about 18 hours to build a Toyota Camry.

Check out the photo gallery video, below, then let us know what you think of the Battista – and whether you think that 85x jump in man-hours seems legit – in the comments section at the bottom of the page.