British supercar manufacturer Noble Automotive’s founder, Lee Noble, has left Noble and formed Fenix to continue creating high-end exotic sports cars. Noble says that his next car, essentially the successor to the M12 will go on sale in its home market during the second half of 2010. Although few details have been released, the company did preview the rakish, Corvette ZR1-powered sports car with a pair of revealing photographs.
Base models of the as-of-yet unnamed sports car will be motivated by the 480-horsepower LS3 V8 that does duty in the Chevrolet Corvette. However, Fenix says that its performance-minded customers – and those with bigger budgets – will want to step up to the 638-horsepower LS9 V8-powered model, which gets the Corvette ZR1′s powertrain.
Fenix is targeting 1,200 kg (around 2,646 lbs.) for the new sports car, which should help it accelerate to 100 mph in less than 7 seconds. The car should top out at around 200 mph.
“The M12 was hugely successful, but we needed to move the game on in terms of design,†said company founder Lee Noble. “The new car’s styling owes nothing to what I’ve done before and has quite literally been a ‘clean sheet’ exercise from the start. It’s edgy, with powerful lines, and aerodynamically will be in another league to any of my previous cars.â€
