Why the Apollo Evo Does Not Need to Be Road Legal

While keeping a sensible distance from the Apollo Evo - lest its razor-edged, downforce-obsessed bodywork carve me up like a carbon-fibre abattoir - one question kept circling in my mind as I filmed TG’s latest First Look video.

How could this possibly be legal for the road?

Apollo Evo: a track car without compromises

Massive sections of exposed tyre are visible, while pedestrian-slicing winglets seem to protrude in every direction. Its V12 has no silencing whatsoever and runs extremely rich, producing a small cloud of black smoke when revved from idle. It is so uncompromising, so raw and… wait a moment, where would the numberplate even go?

Naturally, the Apollo Evo is entirely illegal for road use. Taking it to the shops would make about as much sense as using a Eurofighter Typhoon, or one of NASA’s ‘crawlers’ that hauls rockets towards the launch pad.

At first, that made me admire it a little less. After all, the genuinely difficult aspect of creating a modern supercar is not making it rapid in a straight line, able to corner as though magnetically attached to the tarmac, or capable of repeatedly hitting the redline for Instagram without detonating.

The hard part is meeting crash, noise, pedestrian-impact and emissions regulations. None of it is glamorous, but all of it matters.

An Aston Martin Valkyrie is, truthfully, fairly demanding on the road. Yet the fact that it can legally be used on the King’s highway alongside taxis, scooters and Vauxhall Mokkas reflects an extraordinary level of painstaking detail.

It is also staggeringly costly, absurdly difficult and, perhaps, futile.

I asked the Apollo team whether the ten lunatics purchasing an Evo were frustrated that they could not drive it on public roads. With a little paraphrasing, their response amounted to: ‘we doubt that’ll stop them'.

Road legality beyond Great Britain

The problem, you see, is that I had approached this from a British viewpoint. In Great Britain, amid speed cameras, yellow-box-junction cameras, bus-lane cameras, car-park cameras, red-light cameras, dash-cams and now even cameras that catch noisy exhausts… driving an exotic car attracts more watchful attention than being in a high-security prison.

Take a Pagani Huayra R Evo or Ferrari FXXK along Kensington High Street and somebody will report you at once. It will probably be AI.

In several other key supercar markets, however, attitudes towards what qualifies as roadworthy are somewhat more relaxed. Apollo’s financial backers note that the Intensa Emozione V12 track car was never homologated for public streets either. Even so, several appeared on notorious road rallies and late-night club cruises.

In truth, anyone with enough spare cash for an ultra-limited boutique hypercar could brush aside whatever fine the authorities issue for charging around without exhaust baffles, indicators or numberplates.

I am not endorsing the notion that rich people should sit above the law. I am simply observing that this is the real-world situation, whether we like it or not. Forza Horizon in real life.

Lanzante conversions and road-legal hypercars

With British engineering specialist Lanzante successfully converting track-only specials into genuinely road-legal machines, manufacturers could potentially avoid considerable bother.

Lanzante has certified a Pagani Zonda R, multiple Porsche 935s and, more recently, a Bugatti Bolide. Its conversion work is exceptionally well executed. Having supported the 24 Hours-winning effort in 1995, the firm earned another reputation by making the Le Mans-racing McLaren F1 GTRs suitable for road use.

TopGear.com has also learned that at least one deposit-holder for the impossibly extreme Red Bull RB17 has contacted Lanzante to explore a road conversion for the 1,200bhp Cosworth V10 spaceship. Is Adrian Newey regularly that late for work in his Valkyrie that he requires something faster?

Clearly, it would be a dreadful shame if Ferrari, McLaren, Pagani and their peers concluded that street cars capable of brightening your day as they thunder past on a bypass no longer made commercial sense.

Yet making compliant hypercars is becoming ever harder, while certain customers seemingly do not care whether their cars are formally permitted on the road - or on a circuit - provided they are quick, noisy, scarce and special…