Supercars News from Italy, Britain and Japan

The world of high-performance motoring has been given a slight shake this week with three huge debuts in terms of supercars. We'll begin in Italy, go to England and finish in Japan with an unknown.

To begin: Ferrari has launched a new supercar. Called the Roma, it takes design cues from the 250s of the late 1950s and 1960s. The car makes 612 horsepower and 760Nm of torque from its 3.9L twin-turbo V8 engine. It accelerates from 0-60 in 3.4 seconds and then moves on to about 200mph. But the main thing about the car is its head turning looks, particularly from the front view. It's absolutely brilliant to look at, and I don't doubt it'd be different to drive.

Meanwhile in Great Britain, McLaren have unveiled a special edition hyper car called the Elva. It has no roof or windows, and an optional windshield, and costs 1.69 million dollars. However, it's designed that way as a specialist roadster. It pays tribute to the McLaren-Elva M1A of the 1960s. Instead of the windshield and windows, the car is designed to have an aerodynamic bubble that encapsulates the cockpit. From the front it looks like most other McLarens of the modern era (Senna excluded), but from the back it is quite different. Overall, we don't know many performance figures yet but the 804 horsepower 4 litre twin turbo V8 accelerates the car to 200kmh in 6.7 seconds. 399 will be made of the latest Ultimate Series member.

And to Japan where the somewhat mysterious Aspark company have finally unveiled their production version of their Owl that was unveiled as a concept in 2017. It's performance figures rather than its looks are what blows your mind first- the car produces 1985 horsepower and hits 60mph in 1.7 seconds. 1.7. The top speed is 249mph. In terms of looks, I'd say that I expect a car looking like this to be part of the Le Mans Hypercar rulebook, as it just looks ready to race rather than drive on the road. And indeed, Aspark are apparently targeting the Nurburgring EV record currently held by NIO. One sticking point is the price- 3.2 million dollars US, nearly double the Elva and many, many times the Roma. However, there is no doubt there will be prospective buyers who'll clamour not for the very young badge but for the exhilarating performance and race-ready looks.