Half-price hypercar

If you’ve heard of Praga before now, it could be because you’re Czech and you’ve known all your life about the huge engineering firm that’s named after your capital city. Or it could be because you’ve been paying attention to the British motor racing scene, specifically Britcar where Praga’s R1 has been cleaning up. The rest of us might only be finding out about Praga right now, as it reveals its £1m road-going hypercar.

If the bug-like Praga Bohema fails to sell in the modest numbers the company hopes (89 cars over five years), we will at least know why: because hypercar buyers weren’t prepared to spend a seven-figure sum on a car made by a company with no heritage in the field, or because they couldn’t square that mighty price tag with the Nissan engine that resides beneath the shapely rear deck.

In either case, who could blame them? It would be nice to think that cars found buyers based purely on how well they do the job they are designed for, but we all know image projection plays a significant role too – and it’s not immediately clear what image the Bohema projects. But there’s something else, perhaps the major reason why certain very expensive cars become so sought after among the rich: it’s the narrative, the story that comes attached to the car. You know the sort of thing – the first road car to be designed by the great Adrian Newey, the true successor to the McLaren F1, the same engine as Lewis Hamilton’s Formula 1 car…