After showing off the production-spec GT Launch Edition at this year’s Monterey Car Week, Automobili Turismo e Sport Automobili (or simply ATS) is finally offering the general public more information about its limited-edition machine.
ATS only plans to build 12 units of the GT Launch Edition as a nod the total production of the 1964 ATS 2500 GT. Prices for them start at $850,000, but the model’s bespoke nature means that the cost can grow quickly. ATS has already sold three of these machines, leaving nine of them up for grabs.
The ATS GT is supposed to look like a modern reinterpretation of the company’s original vehicles. The design is far more modern, though. The low-slung nose and side-mounted intakes give the model a look akin to the current crop of McLarens or an Audi R8. ATS uses carbon fiber to construct both the body and chassis to keep weight down.
The story of Automobili Turismo e Sport (ATS) dates to the great walkout from Maranello in the mid-1960s, when a group of executives and engineers, fed up with Enzo Ferrari’s notoriously difficult manners, left to establish their own company.
Lead by Carlo Chiti and Giotto Bizzarrini, the newly formed company created the ATS 2500 GT and briefly competed in Formula One (to less than spectacular effect). The company went under in 1965, but a new consortium revived the name in 2012.
True to its history, the reborn ATS has been marred by internal rivalries ever since. But it’s ostensibly put those troubles behind it to introduce the ATS GT Launch Edition. The mid-engined supercar is built around a carbon-fiber chassis overlaid with rather stunning carbon-fiber bodywork in a package sized somewhere in between the Lamborghini Huracan and the larger Aventador.
At its heart sits a 3.8 twin-turbo V8 not unlike what you’d find in a McLaren 570S, driving the rear wheels through a seven-speed automatic transmission. ATS will offer it in two states of tune: one producing 730 horsepower (537 kW) and 575 lb-ft (780 Nm) of torque, and another with an impressive 827 hp (608 kW) and 700 lb-ft (949 Nm). The manufacturer says it’ll hit 60 in 2.9 seconds and 120 mph in 9.6.
Brembo carbon-ceramic brakes keep it all in check, double wishbones suspend it at both ends with adjustable shocks, and Michelin provides its Pilot Sport S4 or Cup 2 tires on 20- or 21-inch wheels – plus, it features all the electronics you’d expect from a modern supercar.