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Venturi Atlantique 300

Made from Scratch

The Venturi Atlantique was a mid-engined, fiberglass-bodied French sports car produced by Venturi Automobiles from 1991 to 2000.
Scotsman Hubert O'Neill purchased Venturi in 1994 and conceived of the Venturi 400GT as well as a revised Atlantique. After a rushed design time of six months, the new Atlantique 300 was unveiled at the Paris Motor Show. Its 3.0 PRV V6 engine was lifted from other Peugeot/Citroën models and was good for 210 hp (157 kW; 213 PS) in naturally aspirated form or 281 hp (210 kW; 285 PS) with a turbocharger which was essentially the same engine as used in the Alpine A610.

Venturi again went into receivership in 1996, and was bought by Thai firm Nakarin Benz, under whom the company focused its concentration upon road cars. The biturbo version Atlantique 300 was released in 1998 and used the later L7X V6 which brought the power up to 310 hp (231 kW; 314 PS). With a top speed of 171 miles per hour (275 km/h) and a 0-60 miles per hour (97 km/h) time of 4.9 seconds, this addition made the Atlantique a serious performance competitor to the Lotus Esprit V8.