The Jannarelly Design-1 Is The New Retro Sports Car You Never Knew You Wanted

Ever heard of Jannarelly? We hadn’t until about 10 minutes ago. It’s a neo-retro sports car manufacturer that takes the name of Anthony Jannarelly, the man who designed the Lykan Hypersport and Fenyr Supersport. And it just delivered its first car.

Jannarelly is a partnership run with Frederic Juillot, a custom boat maker and ‘expert in composite materials.’ They own a Caterham and a Donkervoort between them, and wanted to build something of their own to bring the lightweight sports car concept up to date.

The small-scale company’s first delivery is the Design-1, a two-seat roadster built around a tubular chassis and a 3.5-litre V6. It’s good for 300bhp in a package that weighs 780kg, so it’s quick. It’ll fire you to 62mph in 4.0 seconds on the way to a 135mph top speed.

Built to loosely resemble classic sports cars but reimagined with a hint of futurism, it’s a neat little thing. You sit really low in carbonfibre seats, your backside almost brushing the road while you’re secured by one of two four-point harnesses. It’s 3860mm long; about 11cm shorter than a Fiesta. It’s wider, though, for stability through corners.

Naturally, to fit with the ethos of the car it’s only built with a manual gearbox (rejoice!). Not only that, but you also get a limited-slip differential between the driving wheels, which, of course, are at the back. The good stuff continues with double-wishbone suspension at every corner. You can order it with either road-biased or track-biased Pirelli tyres.

Want one? We wouldn’t blame you. It’s available to order in the US, priced at $62,000 before any delivery charges or local taxes. An expensive toy, perhaps, but it does look a bit special.