6 ms·

A 17k sport car made in France

31 points by zettacircl 7y ago

donalhunt 7y ago
Is it just me but does a new petrol Euro 6.2 engine make sense in 2019? I know it's targeting the sports market but if they went with an electric motor, they would have a pretty competitive vehicle imo (they are limited to 1000 cars/year though).
- zettacircl 7y ago
  Totally agree. Just found it fun that we can make "a sport car" for below 20k (it was sold at 8k before launch) with very common car parts.
  - copperx 7y ago
    Can you explain > it was sold at 8k before launch
    - taneq 7y ago
      Kickstarter type thing maybe?
      - will_deBerry 7y ago
        We started by selling the "pre-series" (something that is not done at major manufacturers who destroy the pre-series normally. We started selling the first at 8500 € and the price to evolve at the same time as the progress on the car (car assembled 100% by hand)
  - rale00 7y ago
    You can get a new Mitsubishi Mirage for under $10k, if you really wanted to. Just like this car, it also comes with a 1.2L 3-cylinder engine, and is also not at all a sports car.
    - namdnay 7y ago
      They sell that as the "Chevrolet Colt" here... definitely don't do a turbocharged version with 130hp though
    - donaltroddyn 7y ago
      In France, the Mirage is sold as the SpaceStar, and the cheapest 1.2L option is €13,495, which is upwards of $15,000 USD. Motoring in general is very inexpensive in the States, so it's difficult to make meaningful a comparison on price.
    - will_deBerry 7y ago
      To dispel all misunderstandings, NO, it is not a sports and obviously not a super car (130hp 1.2Turbo for 16 490 € ... obviously not :) - The goal of this car is to have a relatively inexpensive leisure vehicle with a "sporty" design (that we like or not) and feelings of "fun" driving (due in particular to the standard bucket seats, in the center low gravity, tubular black currant fairly rigid, the sound of the engine well present in the cabin, the weight / power ratio that remains correct for a car of 4.68m (1240kg) and the side "gross" and "without filter" which will delight some and will scare others. - So NO, it's not a sports, we do not even communicate on the 0/100 so it's the opposite of what we wanted to do. - Yes the road behavior is excellent (proportionately kept and useless comparison with sports). - The car on loan for this test was just coming out of the assembly line (we are in constant flow) and we asked the testers not to force too hard on the engine. - Yes it is about finishes constantly being improved and no it is not a luxury car, far from it (it's a car made by hand in the 78, the only robot there is at home is the coffee machine). - We are an SME with all that implies and compare us to major manufacturers, their unlimited means, their finish, their equipment, would not necessarily be wise. (same for comparisons with cars of big brands in occasion)
- taneq 7y ago
  Not sure whether a new internal combustion engine makes sense at this point in time, but it's certainly not where I'd start if I were trying to launch a marque with a focus on low cost. Same with the space frame construction which is very labour intensive. I wish them well but they're making some odd choices.
- Arcanum-XIII 7y ago
  Electric would cost a lot more currently. ICE engine are cheap and well known (especially if you're not designing it yourself) and you don't have to fight with all the battery issues. I hope this will evolve fast !
- singularity2001 7y ago
  Was hoping for electro too. I find a petrol 'sports' car in 2019 just repelling.
copperx 7y ago
Since I was a teenager I never understood why cheap cars had to be ugly in the exterior. I understand that if you're a car company you don't want to cannibalize sales of your higher-end models, but that doesn't stop a new company coming up with a really nice looking budget car. Why did that never happen? I still wonder. This car looks really nice, and proves that a nice looking car doesn't have to be expensive.
- megablast 7y ago
  Exactly, it is just different shaped molds.
  - onion2k 7y ago
    For steel maybe, but even then it can be tricky to make some shapes. Doing it at scale with high precision is hard regardless of what you're making. Bending more exotic metals, glass, and carbon fibre in more than one direction at once while maintaining it's strength is a really hard problem.
    - sjwright 7y ago
      Also less expensive car shapes are optimized for other priorities like space efficiency and ease of manufacture. And don’t forget that much of what makes a sports car attractive is psychological and powered by a true perception of scarcity. If everyone’s car looked like an Aston Martin DB11 they wouldn’t be nearly so attractive as they look to us.
- jonny_eh 7y ago
  It's hard to make a new car company, especially one that targets the low end of the market. The low end of the market has tighter margins, and therefore needs high volume to be profitable. Hard to imagine a startup achieving that.
- libc2020 7y ago
  I think Mazda is trying to fill in that niche, the recent 2019 Mazda3 is more refined and luxurious compared to competitors in it's class, but without the price tag of a German luxury.
pcurve 7y ago
I'm a car guy and I had never heard of this until today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkNga_su--w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkNga_su--w Check out the video. Build quality and fit/finish is worse than Chinese cars from early 2000s. Panel gaps, alignment, interior quality, materials. Absolutely horrendous. Inexcusable even for $17k. For that money, you are better off buying a Honda Fit. I don't see the point of this car at all.
- megablast 7y ago
  > Panel gaps, alignment, interior quality, materials. None of this is important.
  - yetanotherme 7y ago
    Well, in that case, neither is the car.
- inlined 7y ago
  Apparently you haven’t bought a recent model Tesla.
  - inlined 7y ago
    Not sure why I got the downvote. I was snarky but not sarcastic. Ask any Tesla certified body shop. Watch any YouTube video. They’re notorious for bad finishes. Hell, I found out that mine came with undisclosed damage that required bondo to fix. The most common explanation I’ve heard from Tesla is that this is just something that happens on their $100k cars: damage in the factory that they patch and don’t disclose.
- kowdermeister 7y ago
  Or a used BMW Z4 :) I'd buy one if I hadn't live in the city center.
  - namdnay 7y ago
    People always say this, until they take into account the insurance difference, the fuel difference, the tyre price difference, the maintenance difference...
ian0 7y ago
Could anyone find the performance statistics? 0-100kph?
- omneity 7y ago
  According to their FAQ, it's 10s, and the max speed is 180kph. The same entry mentions that the car is not a sports car, only has the looks. http://www.mpm-motors.com/faq/ http://www.mpm-motors.com/faq/ Section "Pourquoi ne pas avoir mis plus de puissance?"
taneq 7y ago
As per the FAQ question "Why not make it more powerful?" (via Google Translate): > Do not forget that it is a lowcost car, it has a sporty look, yes, but it is not a sport, hence its price. My main worries for it being a "sports car" are that the transverse engine suggests front wheel drive (unless there's evidence to the contrary?) and the lack of any discussion of the gearbox other than specifying it as "mechanical" (which hopefully is a mistranslation of "manual"?) Also it's not THAT low cost, given that its main competition seems to be the Toybaru BRZ which is only EU 3k more and has 200hp to this thing's 130hp (and the primary criticism of which is STILL "it's underpowered".) Edit: I misread. As pointed out below, the BRZ is actually a fair bit more expensive.
- andoriyu 7y ago
  Mechanical means manual. That kind of transmission/gearbox is called mechanical in many languages.
- joking 7y ago
  The brz and the gt86 are around 30k in Europe, so the increase is a bit more
- devoply 7y ago
  My main issue would be fixing stuff if it breaks. Toyota dealer's got you. With this thing after a few years good luck, unless they have built it on a bunch of standard parts from a Japanese or German manufacturer or something.
  - SnackFalcon 7y ago
    The site states it has an EB2ADTS engine. That's a PSA group engine used in a bunch of cars such as the Peugeot 3008. So support/parts would be be pretty easy to obtain.
    - ihalip 7y ago
      But I don't think it uses PSA's EMP2 platform. Wikipedia says this car is a modified Tagaz Aquila.
PunksATawnyFill 7y ago
That site is an unmitigated mess. What a POS.
aitchnyu 7y ago
Is there an relatively affordable road legal car designed for maximum sportiness at expense of comfort and beauty? Example optimisations in mind: door above knee high roll cage, single headlight unit near the center (why distribute two masses towards edges?), two piece windscreen if need be, door made out of a steel slab with outside hinges, windows that dont roll down completely.
- namdnay 7y ago
  > relatively affordable road legal car designed for maximum sportiness at expense of comfort and beauty Caterham Caterham Caterham :) You can even build it yourself. Sadly not possible in France
- ukoki 7y ago
  Caterham 7s start at £26,490 in the UK with comfort being a definite low priority https://www.caterhamcars.com/en/models/the-iconic-range/seven-270 https://www.caterhamcars.com/en/models/the-iconic-range/seve...
  - namdnay 7y ago
    They don't sell the 160 anymore? It was less than 15 grand in kit!
    - ollie87 7y ago
      Nope.
namdnay 7y ago
There's something very dodgy about this.. At no point in their "history" do they mention that this is the Tagaz Aquila from Russia, and that MPM motors is Mikhail Paramonov: https://en.crimerussia.com/oligarchs/versailles-mansion-of-tagaz-owner-searched/ https://en.crimerussia.com/oligarchs/versailles-mansion-of-t... So he bankrupted his previous car company TagAz, and now he's selling the same car under a new company...
- will_deBerry 7y ago
  the project (a Korean / German / Russian project, which had never been able to afford its potential) was bought by his son (who grew up in France) to serve as a "starter pack" and later develop a range completely new
  - namdnay 7y ago
    Interesting. Which one is the news article about?
    - will_deBerry 7y ago
      We have not yet introduced the new models, they are currently in development and should come out one by one from the end of 2020, there are two SUVs, a sedan (and its wagon version) and a small electric city car.
      - namdnay 7y ago
        Sorry I wasn't clear. I meant which one of father/son is the news article about? Is Mikhail Paramonov (the one who stole all the money) the father?
RickJWagner 7y ago
Hmmm, there's a banner at the bottom that says 'Recruiting for 2018'. Is this thing dead?
will_deBerry 7y ago
Hello everyone, A customer sent us this link, I see a lot of questions and sometimes misunderstanding too :) Have a look on our faceBook page instagram, you will see more things To quickly summarize our young company: MPM Motors is a young French car manufacturer founded in 2015 in the 78. The goal is simple, to offer vehicles with a sporty look for a reasonable budget, to a public who often remains dreamy in front of cars inaccessible to the common people. The PS160 and its evolution ERELIS are the first models of a range of vehicles developed by MPM MOTORS. We manually assemble our vehicles in our factory in Saint Quentin en Yvelines (near Paris). Thus creating a hundred jobs in the region since 2016. The combination of space frame and composite body, inspired by motorsport, allows us a unique design for a production car, providing exceptional handling and sports sensations for a limited cost. = To dispel all misunderstandings, NO, it is not a sports and obviously not a super car (130hp 1.2Turbo for 16 490 € ... obviously not :) - The goal of this car is to have a relatively inexpensive leisure vehicle with a "sporty" design (that we like or not) and feelings of "fun" driving (due in particular to the standard bucket seats, in the center low gravity, tubular black currant fairly rigid, the sound of the engine well present in the cabin, the weight / power ratio that remains correct for a car of 4.68m (1240kg) and the side "gross" and "without filter" which will delight some and will scare others. - So NO, it's not a sports, we do not even communicate on the 0/100 so it's the opposite of what we wanted to do. - Yes the road behavior is excellent (proportionately kept and useless comparison with sports). - The car on loan for this test was just coming out of the assembly line (we are in constant flow) and we asked the testers not to force too hard on the engine. - Yes it is about finishes constantly being improved and no it is not a luxury car, far from it (it's a car made by hand in the 78, the only robot there is at home is the coffee machine). - We are an SME with all that implies and compare us to major manufacturers, their unlimited means, their finish, their equipment, would not necessarily be wise. (same for comparisons with cars of big brands in occasion) - We remain at your disposal to answer all your questions without language as usual. (sorry for my aproximative english :)) Guillaume de Berry MPM Motors France
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

31 points by zettacircl 7y ago

Is it just me but does a new petrol Euro 6.2 engine make sense in 2019? I know it's targeting the sports market but if they went with an electric motor, they would have a pretty competitive vehicle imo (they are limited to 1000 cars/year though).

zettacircl 7y ago
Totally agree. Just found it fun that we can make "a sport car" for below 20k (it was sold at 8k before launch) with very common car parts.
- copperx 7y ago
  Can you explain > it was sold at 8k before launch
  - taneq 7y ago
    Kickstarter type thing maybe?
    - will_deBerry 7y ago
      We started by selling the "pre-series" (something that is not done at major manufacturers who destroy the pre-series normally. We started selling the first at 8500 € and the price to evolve at the same time as the progress on the car (car assembled 100% by hand)
- rale00 7y ago
  You can get a new Mitsubishi Mirage for under $10k, if you really wanted to. Just like this car, it also comes with a 1.2L 3-cylinder engine, and is also not at all a sports car.
  - namdnay 7y ago
    They sell that as the "Chevrolet Colt" here... definitely don't do a turbocharged version with 130hp though
  - donaltroddyn 7y ago
    In France, the Mirage is sold as the SpaceStar, and the cheapest 1.2L option is €13,495, which is upwards of $15,000 USD. Motoring in general is very inexpensive in the States, so it's difficult to make meaningful a comparison on price.
  - will_deBerry 7y ago
    To dispel all misunderstandings, NO, it is not a sports and obviously not a super car (130hp 1.2Turbo for 16 490 € ... obviously not :) - The goal of this car is to have a relatively inexpensive leisure vehicle with a "sporty" design (that we like or not) and feelings of "fun" driving (due in particular to the standard bucket seats, in the center low gravity, tubular black currant fairly rigid, the sound of the engine well present in the cabin, the weight / power ratio that remains correct for a car of 4.68m (1240kg) and the side "gross" and "without filter" which will delight some and will scare others. - So NO, it's not a sports, we do not even communicate on the 0/100 so it's the opposite of what we wanted to do. - Yes the road behavior is excellent (proportionately kept and useless comparison with sports). - The car on loan for this test was just coming out of the assembly line (we are in constant flow) and we asked the testers not to force too hard on the engine. - Yes it is about finishes constantly being improved and no it is not a luxury car, far from it (it's a car made by hand in the 78, the only robot there is at home is the coffee machine). - We are an SME with all that implies and compare us to major manufacturers, their unlimited means, their finish, their equipment, would not necessarily be wise. (same for comparisons with cars of big brands in occasion)
taneq 7y ago
Not sure whether a new internal combustion engine makes sense at this point in time, but it's certainly not where I'd start if I were trying to launch a marque with a focus on low cost. Same with the space frame construction which is very labour intensive. I wish them well but they're making some odd choices.
Arcanum-XIII 7y ago
Electric would cost a lot more currently. ICE engine are cheap and well known (especially if you're not designing it yourself) and you don't have to fight with all the battery issues. I hope this will evolve fast !
singularity2001 7y ago
Was hoping for electro too. I find a petrol 'sports' car in 2019 just repelling.

copperx 7y ago

Since I was a teenager I never understood why cheap cars had to be ugly in the exterior. I understand that if you're a car company you don't want to cannibalize sales of your higher-end models, but that doesn't stop a new company coming up with a really nice looking budget car. Why did that never happen? I still wonder. This car looks really nice, and proves that a nice looking car doesn't have to be expensive.

megablast 7y ago
Exactly, it is just different shaped molds.
- onion2k 7y ago
  For steel maybe, but even then it can be tricky to make some shapes. Doing it at scale with high precision is hard regardless of what you're making. Bending more exotic metals, glass, and carbon fibre in more than one direction at once while maintaining it's strength is a really hard problem.
  - sjwright 7y ago
    Also less expensive car shapes are optimized for other priorities like space efficiency and ease of manufacture. And don’t forget that much of what makes a sports car attractive is psychological and powered by a true perception of scarcity. If everyone’s car looked like an Aston Martin DB11 they wouldn’t be nearly so attractive as they look to us.
jonny_eh 7y ago
It's hard to make a new car company, especially one that targets the low end of the market. The low end of the market has tighter margins, and therefore needs high volume to be profitable. Hard to imagine a startup achieving that.
libc2020 7y ago
I think Mazda is trying to fill in that niche, the recent 2019 Mazda3 is more refined and luxurious compared to competitors in it's class, but without the price tag of a German luxury.

pcurve 7y ago

I'm a car guy and I had never heard of this until today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkNga_su--w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkNga_su--w Check out the video. Build quality and fit/finish is worse than Chinese cars from early 2000s. Panel gaps, alignment, interior quality, materials. Absolutely horrendous. Inexcusable even for $17k. For that money, you are better off buying a Honda Fit. I don't see the point of this car at all.

megablast 7y ago
> Panel gaps, alignment, interior quality, materials. None of this is important.
- yetanotherme 7y ago
  Well, in that case, neither is the car.
inlined 7y ago
Apparently you haven’t bought a recent model Tesla.
- inlined 7y ago
  Not sure why I got the downvote. I was snarky but not sarcastic. Ask any Tesla certified body shop. Watch any YouTube video. They’re notorious for bad finishes. Hell, I found out that mine came with undisclosed damage that required bondo to fix. The most common explanation I’ve heard from Tesla is that this is just something that happens on their $100k cars: damage in the factory that they patch and don’t disclose.
kowdermeister 7y ago
Or a used BMW Z4 :) I'd buy one if I hadn't live in the city center.
- namdnay 7y ago
  People always say this, until they take into account the insurance difference, the fuel difference, the tyre price difference, the maintenance difference...

ian0 7y ago

Could anyone find the performance statistics? 0-100kph?

omneity 7y ago
According to their FAQ, it's 10s, and the max speed is 180kph. The same entry mentions that the car is not a sports car, only has the looks. http://www.mpm-motors.com/faq/ http://www.mpm-motors.com/faq/ Section "Pourquoi ne pas avoir mis plus de puissance?"

taneq 7y ago

As per the FAQ question "Why not make it more powerful?" (via Google Translate): > Do not forget that it is a lowcost car, it has a sporty look, yes, but it is not a sport, hence its price. My main worries for it being a "sports car" are that the transverse engine suggests front wheel drive (unless there's evidence to the contrary?) and the lack of any discussion of the gearbox other than specifying it as "mechanical" (which hopefully is a mistranslation of "manual"?) Also it's not THAT low cost, given that its main competition seems to be the Toybaru BRZ which is only EU 3k more and has 200hp to this thing's 130hp (and the primary criticism of which is STILL "it's underpowered".) Edit: I misread. As pointed out below, the BRZ is actually a fair bit more expensive.

andoriyu 7y ago
Mechanical means manual. That kind of transmission/gearbox is called mechanical in many languages.
joking 7y ago
The brz and the gt86 are around 30k in Europe, so the increase is a bit more
devoply 7y ago
My main issue would be fixing stuff if it breaks. Toyota dealer's got you. With this thing after a few years good luck, unless they have built it on a bunch of standard parts from a Japanese or German manufacturer or something.
- SnackFalcon 7y ago
  The site states it has an EB2ADTS engine. That's a PSA group engine used in a bunch of cars such as the Peugeot 3008. So support/parts would be be pretty easy to obtain.
  - ihalip 7y ago
    But I don't think it uses PSA's EMP2 platform. Wikipedia says this car is a modified Tagaz Aquila.

PunksATawnyFill 7y ago

That site is an unmitigated mess. What a POS.

aitchnyu 7y ago

Is there an relatively affordable road legal car designed for maximum sportiness at expense of comfort and beauty? Example optimisations in mind: door above knee high roll cage, single headlight unit near the center (why distribute two masses towards edges?), two piece windscreen if need be, door made out of a steel slab with outside hinges, windows that dont roll down completely.

namdnay 7y ago
> relatively affordable road legal car designed for maximum sportiness at expense of comfort and beauty Caterham Caterham Caterham :) You can even build it yourself. Sadly not possible in France
ukoki 7y ago
Caterham 7s start at £26,490 in the UK with comfort being a definite low priority https://www.caterhamcars.com/en/models/the-iconic-range/seven-270 https://www.caterhamcars.com/en/models/the-iconic-range/seve...
- namdnay 7y ago
  They don't sell the 160 anymore? It was less than 15 grand in kit!
  - ollie87 7y ago
    Nope.

namdnay 7y ago

There's something very dodgy about this.. At no point in their "history" do they mention that this is the Tagaz Aquila from Russia, and that MPM motors is Mikhail Paramonov: https://en.crimerussia.com/oligarchs/versailles-mansion-of-tagaz-owner-searched/ https://en.crimerussia.com/oligarchs/versailles-mansion-of-t... So he bankrupted his previous car company TagAz, and now he's selling the same car under a new company...

will_deBerry 7y ago
the project (a Korean / German / Russian project, which had never been able to afford its potential) was bought by his son (who grew up in France) to serve as a "starter pack" and later develop a range completely new
- namdnay 7y ago
  Interesting. Which one is the news article about?
  - will_deBerry 7y ago
    We have not yet introduced the new models, they are currently in development and should come out one by one from the end of 2020, there are two SUVs, a sedan (and its wagon version) and a small electric city car.
    - namdnay 7y ago
      Sorry I wasn't clear. I meant which one of father/son is the news article about? Is Mikhail Paramonov (the one who stole all the money) the father?

RickJWagner 7y ago

Hmmm, there's a banner at the bottom that says 'Recruiting for 2018'. Is this thing dead?

will_deBerry 7y ago

Hello everyone, A customer sent us this link, I see a lot of questions and sometimes misunderstanding too :) Have a look on our faceBook page instagram, you will see more things To quickly summarize our young company: MPM Motors is a young French car manufacturer founded in 2015 in the 78. The goal is simple, to offer vehicles with a sporty look for a reasonable budget, to a public who often remains dreamy in front of cars inaccessible to the common people. The PS160 and its evolution ERELIS are the first models of a range of vehicles developed by MPM MOTORS. We manually assemble our vehicles in our factory in Saint Quentin en Yvelines (near Paris). Thus creating a hundred jobs in the region since 2016. The combination of space frame and composite body, inspired by motorsport, allows us a unique design for a production car, providing exceptional handling and sports sensations for a limited cost. = To dispel all misunderstandings, NO, it is not a sports and obviously not a super car (130hp 1.2Turbo for 16 490 € ... obviously not :) - The goal of this car is to have a relatively inexpensive leisure vehicle with a "sporty" design (that we like or not) and feelings of "fun" driving (due in particular to the standard bucket seats, in the center low gravity, tubular black currant fairly rigid, the sound of the engine well present in the cabin, the weight / power ratio that remains correct for a car of 4.68m (1240kg) and the side "gross" and "without filter" which will delight some and will scare others. - So NO, it's not a sports, we do not even communicate on the 0/100 so it's the opposite of what we wanted to do. - Yes the road behavior is excellent (proportionately kept and useless comparison with sports). - The car on loan for this test was just coming out of the assembly line (we are in constant flow) and we asked the testers not to force too hard on the engine. - Yes it is about finishes constantly being improved and no it is not a luxury car, far from it (it's a car made by hand in the 78, the only robot there is at home is the coffee machine). - We are an SME with all that implies and compare us to major manufacturers, their unlimited means, their finish, their equipment, would not necessarily be wise. (same for comparisons with cars of big brands in occasion) - We remain at your disposal to answer all your questions without language as usual. (sorry for my aproximative english :)) Guillaume de Berry MPM Motors France

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]