01
Origins
Roland Gumpert, the engineer behind Audi's rally quattros, built his own gospel in 2005: the Apollo, a mid-engined coupé from Altenburg whose twin-turbo Audi-derived V8 gave up to 800 horsepower, wrapped in bodywork designed around one commandment — downforce. The claim that the Apollo could theoretically drive inverted in a tunnel became its catechism; a Nürburgring lap of 7:11 in 2009, then among production cars' fastest, supplied earthly proof. Comfort, subtlety and volume production were explicitly heresies. Small-series manufacture continued until insolvency in 2013, with the marque's spirit later reborn under Hong Kong ownership as Apollo Automobil. The original remains the pure text: German rally engineering's answer to the supercar, uncompromised to the point of holy discomfort.
2 Apollos with F-4 Phantom · Uli Jooss · CC BY-SA 3.0
