Davey and Tapscott said the car has been created to ideally take a place among the family of iconic British sports cars that include the Jaguar E-Type and the Lotus Elise.
They have no plans for ICE power but say the car is an EV simply to embrace the most modern form of propulsion. The emphasis is on longevity and driving quality. “Our car’s emphasis is 95% sports car and 5% EV,” explained Davey.
Part of Longbow’s ethos is what the founders call a “100-year accord” – an intention to keep the car appealing and relevant a century from now. They have deliberately styled the car to have an appeal that will last and believe its electric powertrain will keep it relevant in the long term.
While it has obvious modern appeal, the founders said their designers deliberately avoided devices that will date it, instead including shape-references to great cars of the 1960s and 1970s. They especially singled out the Shelby Cobra Coupé and Ferrari 288 GTO. The Longbow shape in plan contains a reference to an archer’s longbow, drawn back and ready to fire.
“Beatiful cars stay relevant,” said Davey. “Their shape keeps them that way. Some of the cars we love most have already been around for 60 years. The Ferrari GTO is probably a bit crude under the skin by modern standards, but its shape makes it as great as ever.
“Longbow is designed in all ways to be a car for today, but it also refers very deliberately, especially in its frontal features, to some of the great cars of the ’60s and ’70s, whose beauty keeps them relevant. We want that thing for Longbow and are quite clear that we compromise in future for beauty, even if that has some effect on things like aerodynamics. The one thing we will always promise is light weight.”
