Venturi Automobiles

Venturi Automobiles is a French manufacturer of sports cars born under the name of MVS (Manufacture de Voitures de Sport). The original company built high performance mid-engined sports cars, the most well known of which is the Venturi Atlantique, from 1984 until it declared bankruptcy in 2000.

The brand was purchased in 2001. It is now based in Monaco and builds extremely limited production electric vehicles.

History

The first Venturi came out in 1984, created by Claude Poiraud and Gérard Godfroy, two former engineers at Heuliez. The goal was to present the only "Grand Tourisme" French car capable of competing with the French Bugatti, the Italian Ferrari, and the German Porsche. The headquarters of the company were located in Couëron, Pays de Loire, where almost 750 cars were produced in 20 years.

From the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, they built mid-engined coupés and roadsters with turbocharged PRV engines and Renault gearboxes. Engine power ranged from 213 to for the Venturi Atlantique series.

A limited edition 400 GTR was built for racing homologation requirements and later used in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Venturi was also briefly involved with the Larrousse Formula One team. The team's 1992 car, which bore the Venturi name, was designed and built by Venturi Larousse UK, a British company formerly known as Fomet 1, which had previously designed the 1991 Fondmetal Formula One cars. The 400 GT remains one of the best performing French...
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