Steering, brakes and suspension are in even earlier stages of development than the powertrain and a long way from the delightful cohesiveness of the firm’s E90 BMW M3-engined MF4. But the prototype’s steering really impresses, boasting lots of natural weight and bubbling with communication about what the front wheels are up to, which gives me more confidence than I dared hope for to power out of corners with no ESP safety net. There’s so much mechanical grip that I’ve got nothing to worry about, and I soon build up a lovely flow along this most technical of roads. The full 811lb ft might have caused issue, mind you, and I’m soon pondering whether a hypothetical single-motor car with no electronic aids would prove just as much fun as a finished twin-motor car with functional traction systems.
The upshot of which is to say this is an unfinished car brimming with promise. Its lack of voice compared with Wiesmann’s M-powered hot rods is tangible, but then that’s a hurdle not even a Porsche Taycan has fully leapt over. The sheer ambition coursing through this car (and the engineers bubbling around it) is infectious. The first ground-up electric roadster isn’t going to be cheap, but it is going to have had a lot of love and attention poured into it.
How to make an EV with Wiesmann DNA
Roding Automobile co-founder Günther Riedl has helped integrate an electric powertrain into Project Gecko, a car originally conceived to use a BMW V8. His enthusiasm for what instead follows is insatiable.
“An electric roadster: why shouldn’t it work?” he says. “We don’t want an automated and super-intelligent car right now. Wiesmann has always been made for driving on these kinds of roads. That’s why we’ve given some interaction back with the paddles and kept analogue instruments.”
He doesn’t hold back on what has been tricky, too: packaging all the battery modules while keeping the seats low-slung, not to mention developing software, which is Wiesmann’s own, rather than brought in from elsewhere.