Williams Advanced Engineering (WAE) is teaming up with Italy’s Italdesign to offer car companies and startups a production-ready high-performance electric car package – with the two firms, if required, handling everything from EV underpinnings, to design, legal compliance and production.

WAE is combining its clever ‘EVX’ modular electric vehicle architecture with Italdesign’s vehicle design and ‘turn-key’ development expertise, for a “fully-customisable solution adapted to individual brands’ needs”.

If required, the cars can even be homologated and legally readied for sale, in volumes of up to 10,000 cars a year, with prices starting from £100,000.

Potential customers include new entrants to the electric car market, as well as established vehicle brands.

The two companies say they can create a comprehensive line-up of EVs, with the core product being a sporty GT coupe or convertible, but with the ability to make luxury saloons and performance crossover SUVs too.  

Italdesign can even produce up to 500 vehicles a year at its Turin factory, for those who want a complete outsourced solution.

‘Complete EV production’

“Demand for high-performance electric vehicles is continuing to show considerable growth, but to date, there has not been a complete EV production solution,” said WAE technical director Paul McNamara.

“This unique relationship brings together state-of-the-art EV rolling chassis technology with one of the world’s leaders in vehicle body engineering.”

Premium car makers will be able to access “an unprecedented amount of sector-leading expertise… on lower volume high performance models”.

Mr McNamara also stressed the two firm’s potential to bring models more rapidly to market than usual.

“We are extremely glad and thankful of the chance to cooperate with Williams Advanced Engineering,” said Italdesign CTO Antonio Casu.

“Our role in the partnership will be to advance the rolling chassis developed by WAE to the complete platform, and shape it according to the vehicle body style, architecture and contents defined by customers.”

He adds the firm has more than five decades’ of experience here, “whether international OEMs or new-born start-ups”.

EVX architecture

The EVX platform “sets new standards” says WAE: with batteries delivering up to 120kW of energy, it is ready to deliver up to a staggering 1,360hp. The battery pack can also be extended to 160kWh for a potential range of over 620 miles.

WAE says its EVX architecture, which uses a moulded composite structural battery, differs to other EV platforms currently on sale through being much more tightly integrated.

The battery casing is integrated into elements of the body structure, while front and rear chassis structures can take much greater crash loads through the side sills.

This means the EVX ‘skateboard’ chassis delivers greater stiffness, reducing reliance on the upper structure for rigidity – which gives much greater design freedom.

WAE told Motoring Research it has been working on EVX for several years already, and has collaborated with Italdesign for around 18 months in perfecting the interface between underpinnings and the car body on top.

Italdesign’s styling team are confident they have the flexibility to take a car maker’s designs and turn them into a production-ready final vehicle – that will have “class-leading” performance and weight, and “outstanding” aerodynamics and safety.

Performance EV expertise

Williams Advanced Engineering was the original supplier of batteries for the FIA Formula E grid back in 2014, and this relationship has been revived for the 2022-23 season.

The company also provides battery systems to the ETCR electric touring car series and the new Extreme-E rallycross EV series championed by stars such as Lewis Hamilton.

WAE also has “considerable” experience in high-performance electrified road car programmes that goes back more than a decade – including, famously, the Jaguar C-X75 hybrid supercar.

When quizzed on whether the two were currently working on any projects, journalists were told client confidentiality stopped them from disclosing any projects.

However, WAE’s Dyrr Adash tantalisingly added, “we could have a vehicle ready in three years.”

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GTO Engineering has confirmed its all-new, sixties-inspired sports car is to called Squalo and has revealed the final exterior design.  

Squalo means ‘shark’ in Italian and the Twyford-based engineering company said the name reflects the car’s “shark-like look, instincts and speed”.

It is the firm’s first all-new model – up until now, it has serviced, repaired and restored classic Ferraris, including creating recreations of the legendary 250 GT SWB Berlinetta.

The Squalo is said to pair sixties style with 21^st century engineering principles, including the use of 3D printing to aid production.

The Squalo weighs less than 1,000kg and is powered by the company’s bespoke quad-cam 4.0-litre V12, which will be mated to a manual gearbox. Exact specifications – including power and weight – are to be revealed in due course.

Motoring Research understands it takes between 300 and 350 man-hours to hand-build the unit (it isn’t clear at this stage how long it will take to build the car in full) and although it has been designed specifically for the Squalo, the company is planning to offer it as an off-the-shelf product in the future to fit into other vehicles.

The Squalo is to be priced between £1.28 and £1.5 million, plus relevant taxes, with the final price depending on the final specification of the vehicle. GTO Engineering has not decided the exact number of examples that will be built, but we understand the production run will be “in the tens, not the hundreds”.

The first customer cars are expected to roll off the production line – tooling for which is currently underway – in 2023, though if an order is placed now, you are looking at a 2024 delivery date.

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