The French supercar that is mistaken for a Ferrari

 

History of the MVS Venturi 

The MVS venturi Atlantique 300 is a forgotten French car that when rarely spotted is mistaken for a Ferrari 355, however it is an extraordinarily rare car. Now the French aren’t new to sports cars they have had some amazing cars such as the Bugatti Delahaye and Talbot-Lago. Now one must note that there are quite a few variants of the Venturi and I will try to explain as much about the car as I can.

MVS Venturi prototype (1986)

The car was a creation of a French designer by the name Gerard Godfroy, and engineer Claude Poiraud. They left the contract manufacturer Heuliez to pursue the dream of building a sports car. More about these two gentlemen a bit later, MVS stands for   Manufacture de Voitures de Sport, or simply "sports car maker".

Who was Gerard Godfroy?

Godfroy was a Normandy based industrial and automotive designer. In his two years at Peugeot he established the initial design for the 205 and then spent five years with coachbuilder Heuliez. At Heuliez he was responsible for the Alpine V6. In the year 1983 he embarked onto his to be 11-year journey with Venturi.

Gerard Godfroy

Who was Claude Poiraud?

His partner in setting up the company was Claude Poiraud. He had previously collaborated with Godfroy when they were in Heuliez. The idea as mentioned by Poiraud in an interview was to produce only two copies: one for him, the other for Gérard Godfroy. One thing led to another and during 1984, the ambition of a presentation at the Motor Show became a fixed idea. The two worked for countless hours completing the 1:1 scale model in a record time.

Claude Poiraud

About the car itself and what intrigued me to write about it?

The car is French master piece, let’s set that straight. Yes including me a lot of petrol heads would say that it looks an awful lot like a Ferrari f355 and so on and so forth. I was watching the race highlights of the 1994 lemans when this car was mentioned and to me it looked like an f355. It was only after some research I came to find out the passion that was present behind this car. The car was created with a simple intention to deliver a mid-engine sports car that offered world-class performance.

Each model explained

MVS Venturi 210 (1988) 260 (1992)

 The car started of as the MVS Venturi in 1986 and this model went on till 1990. The prototype was called the Ventury later on the Y was dropped for I when it was showcased at the 1984 Paris Motor show. The car presented at the motor show had parts from various cars, the engine from a VW Golf, McPherson suspension from a Peugeot 205 GTI, though the people loved it and funds were raised for the production of the car, it had to be more French.

The engine from the Venturi 260

 Hence, the production car had a V6, the 2.5L SOHC sourced from the Renault 25 Turbo, and this turned out to be the final motor after going through several others. With the transmission mounted behind the engine making it a sharp handler, the car was now shown again in 1986 and customers received cars by 1987. They were pretty punctual when it came to delivery despite being a new company and the fact that each car took 365 hours to manufacture.

Evolution of the car

In the year 1989 Venturi 260 arrived, this had a more powerful 2.8L engine now, still based on the PRV V6, but it now had a longer stroke, higher lift cams, new exhaust and revised ECU mapping. The Garret T3 turbo now at 0.95 Bar of boost helped produce 261 hp. What impressed a lot of people was its real-world performance despite the considerable turbo lag till 3000rpm. In fact, CAR magazine said the Venturi matched the performance of the Ferrari 348 and was an actually better handling car than it.

Venturi Transcup Cabriolet (1989)

What brought the Venturi into the spot light?

The main act that saw them garner attention was their entry into the racing world with 5 street car based 600 hp GT. This lead to another special edition, the 1992 260LM, which was painted French Blue with 17" OZ Racing Alloy wheels.  They even had a one make series called the Venturi Challenge the cars were slightly longer and wider than the road going variant. The engine was based on the 3.0-liter V6 of Renault Safrane Bi-turbo, it was named the Venturi 400 GT and it produced 408hp, only 15 units were built making it the fastest French sports car.  To me the body kit it had for aerodynamic purposes made it look like a baby Ferrari F40. The stripped interior helped loose 100 kg. An interesting fact about the 400 GT was that it was the first car to have carbon ceramic brakes.

Venturi Cup

Venturi 400 GT (1994)

Venturi 400 GT (1994)

In 1996 the Atlantique 300 was launched and was the first GT variant and predictably most of the body work was again made of composites, while the roof and doors were aluminium. Drag coefficient was kept at 0.31. Critiques cited it has a car with better build, space and gear changing quality than the Lotus Esprit. However, with the launch of the V8 Esprit the Atlantique was at a power disadvantage.

Atlantique 300

The downfall of the car

Venturi as a company was too focused in the racing industry, this was draining their resources, this lead the company to file for bankruptcy in 1996. They were purchased by a Thai company who continued the production of the Atlantique 300. With an evolution of the 3.0L engine the production continued till 1998.

Then came the Atlantique 300 bi-turbo in 1998 and was sold till 2000. With twin Aerodyne turbochargers the power figures went up to 310. They ran into bankruptcy again in 2000 as an effect of this only 15 units were ever made.

Lotus Esprit V8 (Atlantique's competitor) 

A designer’s perspective of the car

From a designer’s view point the car throughout its life has been a good-looking car, the proportions are correct, and there are no unnecessary vents that interrupt the line of the car. Yes, the car has always managed to look like a Ferrari, the 400 GT due to the aero kit, in my personal opinion it looked like the Ferrari F40. To get a better perspective of the design I asked my professor, who pointed out that it looked very much like it was from the 90’s era. To me this car is iconic and it looks superb in a race livery. There is one version called the 600 LM which is painted in the same shade as a Bugatti EB110, which looks amazing.

Venturi 600 LM

Overall it is a rare car that a lot of people don’t know about, and it definitely has a lot of passion, hard work, and history behind it, and I would love to experience the car in person someday. 

 

Venturi cup car

 All pictures were take from:

https://drivetribe.com/p/venturi-600-lm-the-forgotten-supercar-TVgM89xMRpmRa5Q8gRmUig?iid=IlYLTT6qQrS-hcivnpcraA

https://www.carthrottle.com/post/mvsventuri-frances-other-sports-car-company/

https://www.autozine.org/Archive/Venturi/classic/Venturi.html

https://www.carstyling.ru/en/entry/Venturi_Atlantique_300_1996/images/4427/

https://www.luxuo.com/motoring/automobile/1993-venturi-400-trophy.html