Outside of Germany, Wiesmann is barely known. A low volume, bespoke sportscar manufacturer based in country’s north, Wiesmann’s cars are ‘best kept secret’ kinda stuff. Those who know about them, adore them, those who don’t tend to assume they’re a new Morgan.
That mistake isn’t too hard to make. Wiesmann’s designs are very ‘old school Brit’ – a grille reminiscent of a Jaguar C-Type, a massive engine up front, and whacking great haunches at the back. Except they’re uniquely German – though the cars are handbuilt at the firm’s gekko-shaped factory in Dülmen, you won’t find any cut corners. OK, hand stitching leaves room for natural imperfection, but the idea of a squeaky panel or wonky shut line simply wouldn’t do. Wiesmann’s powertrains were sourced from various legendary BMWs, too, giving them incredible straight six, V8, or even V10 power and sound, which made them rather more dramatic than British 2.0-litre four cylinder efforts. They’re German muscle with Brit…ish looks.
After some time away, Wiessman is back but not with another dinosaur juice sipping monster, but an EV. And a new man in the top seat. When serial entrepreneur Roheen Berry saw a Wiesmann he fell in love with it, and made moves to bring the brand out of Germany. He secured the rights to create a right hand drive version, and planned to set up a dealership in London. As is the way with these things, one thing lead to another and he ended up owning the company.
One of the things that initially attracted Berry to Wiesmann was how timeless they are, and how once owners have one they tend to keep, and treasure it rather than flip it. This is a positive, of course, because it means the product is strong and much loved. It’s a negative because buyers might stop at one, which means the business won’t shift any new product. Of course, there’s nothing to stop people from having more than one. Wiesmann customers do stick close to the factory though, sending their cars back to the source for TLC.
Under Berry the company’s changing. It needs to grow to survive, but it can’t stick to petrol power: “We also realised that younger generations going forward are not going to take anybody driving around in a big gas guzzling car. So we should be leading by example. And we want all the customers that come out also leading by example and want to set themselves a little bit apart from everybody else. We're not the hypercar that starts at a couple of million, and we're not the standard run of the mill of Tesla.”
This is where Project Thunderball steps in. Though it’s not quite the traditional EV. Its batteries are in the back, not under the floor. That’s for good reason – they’re upgradable. When new tech appears with greater energy density, you can stuff more range into the same space – you can keep your electric Wiesmann just as long as your petrol one, and needn’t worry about being stuck behind the times. Similarly, the car’s software is upgradable so you’ll never be out of date. Berry muses on how disposable luxury tech can be, and how he doesn’t want to live that way: “A prime example of that was the Vertu phone. It was essentially a Nokia dressed up to the hilt. And then in six months time, Nokia released another phone…” Your shiny new phone was rendered old, and out of date, Berry continued: “But if you could actually just insert that Nokia into a case you had..?” Without making Wiesmann sound like a long dead fancy phone company, of course, the new ethos is to keep the form of the car, much as with the older models, and the core of it going as long as the owner wants it. It’s an earnest nod towards sustainability in a world of ever more disposable things with short shelf lives.
What Berry is doing is in line with plenty of others in the fast, fun EV space, albeit his method is to build an all new car in keeping with a classic style, while others are going down the restomod route. Manufacturers like Electrogenic, and Everrati take older, petrol-powered cars, and replace the oily bits with a new electric heart. It’s a trend that’s polarised the automotive community. Some will see Everrati’s electrified Porsche 911 as an affront to the gods of hydrocarbons – removing the German car’s howling flat six engine is akin to violence. On the flip side of the coin, Everrati is selling cars to enthusiasts who want something a bit different, younger tech-minded people who want the car of their dreams but not necessarily one that pollutes, or anyone in between. It’s hard to deny the societal shift in people wanting electric cars – they make up increasing chunks of new car sales every month, and (albeit because of various legislative moves) manufacturers are steadily making their lineups electric only. A little over a decade ago your electric options were scarcely more than a Nissan Leaf or a Lotus-based Tesla Roadster, today you have to work hard to find a car that doesn’t have some level of electrification built in.
Project Thunderball is a way off full production. The company has a remarkably sorted prototype to play in. Boasting 671bhp and 811lb ft from two electric motors, Wiesmann says it’ll hit 62mph from rest in 2.9 seconds, so it’s hardly a slouch. Its 83kWh battery should give it over 300 miles of range, and recharge times promise to be short, which makes it a useable car, not an A to A occasional vehicle like some of the restomods on the market. While its 1700kg weight might make it seem a little on the heavy side, it’s worth remembering that Jaguar’s F-Type R tips the scales north of 1800kgs. Wiesmann wants to keep the car in line with its current pricing, so it’ll sit at around £255,000. Not cheap, but it's a handmade, bespoke car, not something more off the peg like a Porsche 911.
Being an EV with an obscene amount of torque, it’s unsurprisingly fast in a straight line. Even a gentle tickle on the accelerator will cause it to leap into the distance in delicious silence. The lack of noise is rather otherworldly, and encourages you not to drive like a hooligan – quite at odds with the potency of the car. It steers sweetly, the fronts giving decent feedback and encouraging you to push on, and play. You can adjust how severe the energy regeneration is via ‘wheel mounted paddles, which is a neat trick that almost makes it feel like you’re playing with actual gears.
You needn’t worry about its ride being harsh – it’s as smooth as they come on the roads around the Wiesmann’s factory. You do need to worry about the car’s size though. It’s not a huge car by any means, but you sit low down and quite far within its chassis. With rear wheels offset far out, and a long ‘ol nose to contend with, it takes a while to get used to what you’re actually working with.
Its interior, again incredibly well put together for a prototype, is beautifully trimmed - something Wiesmann prides itself on for its customers. The Wiesmann hallmark selection of drive-focussed dials are all present and correct, too, though now focus less on oil pressures and more on charge levels. There’s still some tweaking to be done before production begins, but it’s all very promising.
Berry wants his company to be known by people outside of Germany, and reckons Thunderball is the way to do it. It’s the perfect car for cruising through LA, the Med, or anywhere else where standing out from the crowd is a basic need. The product has to be good, and needs to be sustainable for that to happen though. So far, it looks like the new Wiesmann’s got the cred where it matters, time will tell if the people agree though.
