The Jannarelly sports car will finally be launched this year

Remember the Jannarelly Design-1? Nope? We’ll forgive you. We first saw this little 1960s-inspired sports car back in January 2016 – and it’s fair to say we were rather excited. After that though, things all went rather quiet from the Dubai-based company.

That was until the recent announcement that Jannarelly is set to launch the Design-1 at this year’s Salon Privé. Hurrah!

Why are we so keen for this car to happen? Well, it’s a proper, old-school sports car. At its heart is a Nissan-derived 3.5-litre V6 that now puts 325bhp through a 6spd manual ‘box and out to the rear wheels only. That may not sound like much in these days of 1,000bhp+ EV hypercars, but the Design-1 only weighs between 760-810kg depending on how many carbon parts you spec from the options list.

That makes for a pretty hefty power-to-weight ratio, a 135mph top speed and a 0-62mph time of under 4.0 seconds.

It looks good too doesn’t it? It was designed by the man with his name on the door – Anthony Jannarelly – who previously penned the far more futuristic W Motors Lykan HyperSport. You don’t have to have the full Le Mans barquette spec either – a full carbon hard top or a full-size windscreen are both options.

We’ll see the final production car, and hopefully get a few more details, when Salon Privé rolls around in early September. For those of you who are intrigued though, we understand that Jannarelly will make 499 examples rather than the previously quoted 200.

Expect the price to have risen slightly from 2016’s quote of around £45,000, and with a few options it’ll surely soar even further. However, the levels of customisation available is said to be huge.