If you’re a little rusty on your Spanish car industry history, here’s what you need to know about Hurtan: the company is based in Santa Fe (Spain), and specializes on manufacturing retro-style vehicles. It was founded in 1991 by a Juan Hurtado Gonzalez, who was really into classic sports cars from the 1950s and 60s, which is why every car they’ve made since 1992 has looked really out of place in this century.
In total, they’ve manufactured six
passenger car models/derivatives in the Albaycin T2, T2+2, 2P, 4P, Grand
Albaycin and the Author. While we don’t know what this upcoming sports car
model will be called, it’s safe to say that it doesn’t look quite as old as its
predecessors. It’s definitely retro-styled, but at the same time it’s also more
of a timeless Coupe, at least compared to what we’re used to seeing from the
small Spanish firm (not that we see a lot to begin with). It also has modern
headlights (those embedded into the bodywork), to go with LED daytime running
lights positioned in the lower front bumper. Other design traits include the
muscular arches, classic-looking alloy wheels and quad exhausts at the back.
According to their
intel, this new Hurtan is sitting on a Mazda architecture employing the
Japanese carmaker’s engines, including a 132 HP 1.5-liter unit and a 184 HP
2.0-liter four pot. Both will reportedly work alongside six-speed manual
gearboxes, although the 2.0-liter model will also be available with an optional
automatic transmission. It’s pretty obvious that the Hurtan is based on the
MX-5 RF
We can be a little more specific, as a
closer inspection of the spy pictures, including details such as the doors,
mirrors, window line, windshield and a glimpse of the interior with the free
standing infotainment screen, leave little doubt that this is a re-bodied Mazda
MX-5 RF. However, we can’t say for sure if the MX-5 RF’s folding hardtop
mechanism has been retained or ditched for simplicity.
The official unveiling should take place
relatively soon, possibly as early as the first quarter of this year.
