When the Rezvani Beast first peeked out of the darkness back in March, we expected it to be, well, beastly, but were also suspicious.
That’s because the car’s namesake, Ferris Rezvani, has already been involved in one piece of sports car vaporware: Bulleta Motors’ rebodied Lotus Evora. Will the Beast meet a similarly anticlimactic end?
It deserves better based on its styling alone.
Like the Bulleta project, the Beast based on a British sports car. Instead of a Lotus though, Rezvani took an Ariel Atom and clothed it in carbon fiber bodywork.
The Atom’s exposed framework looked pretty cool on its own, but Rezvani gave the base car a futuristic and menacing look. One that still requires drivers to wear some kind of face protection (a removable windshield is optional).
Ensuring that the Beast is properly beastly are 2.0-liter turbocharged and 2.0-liter supercharged four-cylinder engines, which produce 315 horsepower, and “up to” 500 hp, respectively.
The mid-mounted engines send their power to the rear wheels via a six-speed manual transmission. They’re built by Ariel Atom specialists DDM Works of South Carolina.
The base Beast 300 weighs just 1,470 pounds, and will do 0 to 60 mph in 2.9 seconds. That not good enough for you? The heavier (1,550 lbs) but more powerful Beast 500 will do the sprint in just 2.7 seconds.
With so little car to throw around, the Beast should also be able to put more than a few supercars to shame in the corners, just like its Ariel Atom progenitor.
In fact, current Atom owners can upgrade their cars to Beast 300-spec for $49,000, or Beast 500 for $69,000. Both are special “Launch Edition” prices.
To get a strong start, Rezvani will also offer discounted Launch Edition versions of complete cars. The first two Beast 300 cars will be sold for $99,500, while an unspecified number of Beast 500 models will sell for $124,900.
The series-production Beast 300, meanwhile, will start at $119,000, while the Beast 500 will start at $139,000. The 500 model also comes with a full day of racing school, probably a good idea with a car as serious as this.
