On a recent trip to Amsterdam walking down one of the main shopping streets, I passed a quite beautiful car I’ve never seen before. Having read up on its history afterwards I suspect I may not be the only one to which this was a new discovery, and I am thus happy to introduce you to the Artega GT from the German brand Artega! 

Artega was founded in 2006 as a small car manufacturing company. The first and only model GT was shown in Geneva in 2008 and production started in 2009, in a new plant built in the German city of Delbrück. It was powered by the 6-cylinder, 3.6 litre 300 hp engine that was also found in some VW top models,  along with the VW six-speed DSG gearbox. The limited weight of around 1300 kg helped it to a 0-100 km/h time of 4.8 seconds and a top speed of over 270 km/h. Marketed at a very reasonable price of around 75.000 EUR as new, the Artega GT received quite a lot of praise from the automotive press. Chassis and handling and value for money were deemed very good, the somewhat dead steering feel, the oversized rearview mirrors and some typical small-manufacturer tweeks less so. 

Unfortunately, as with so many small scale manufacturers, the 35-employee Artega car company didn’t survive for long. After a couple of company restructurings and plans for both a convertible and an electric hybrid version, production ceased in 2012 after as little as 130 cars produced. Obviously most of these are still around today, but it’s still far from a car you risk seeing on the next corner. There are currently 12 Artegas for sale on the German site mobile.de, with prices starting just below 50.000 EUR. For a very rare car likely to preserve value quite well, no doubt offering quite a lot of driving thrill and based on an engine and gearbox that can be serviced at the next VW garage, that is actually quite a bargain…