Wiesmann Project Thunderball Revealed As Electric Cabrio With 671 Horsepower

After a multi-year hiatus, independent sports car maker Wiesmann is back in business with the retro-flavored Project Thunderball. You might be familiar with the brand’s BMW-powered models, but there’s no engine of Bavarian origins under the hood. In fact, there is no ICE whatsoever as the roadster is purely electric.

Another interesting fact is that two electric motors don’t always mean all-wheel drive since, in this application, they’re both mounted at the back to give the EV a tail-happy nature. It’s not the first rear-wheel-drive electric convertible since the original Tesla Roadster also sent power exclusively to the rear axle.

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Project Thunderball echoes the styling of its predecessors with their British influences. For example, the egg-shaped front grille takes after the MF5 V10 Roadster from which it has inherited the stacked double round lights theme. Its clamshell hood is also a nod to the past while the retro interior has modern amenities like a large touchscreen and carbon fiber body-hugging seats.

Weismann is promising some juicy numbers for the Project Thunderball, which makes 671 horsepower from its pair of electric motors. The combined torque of 811 pound-feet (1,100 Newton-meters) means the electric roadster can probably move mountains. It needs only 2.9 seconds to reach 62 mph (100 klm/H) from a standstill in a vehicle that weighs about 1,700 kilograms (3,747 pounds).

The two electric motors get their juice from an 83-kWh battery with support for 800V to charge at up to 300 kW. With the battery fully replenished, Project Thunderball will cover as much as 311 miles (500 kilometers) between charges. The engineers at Weismann have conceived the EV with five selectable levels of regenerative braking for what company CEO Roheen Berry claims will be “the world’s most exciting electric sports car.”

There are no details about when the Project Thunderball will go on sale or how many will be built. Pricing is also another missing piece of the puzzle, but we do know the electric cabrio is going to be manufactured at the firm’s Gecko plant in Dülmen, Germany. We’re being told that most of the original team is still working for the company.