High-end Car Manufacturers Make Middle East Debut at Dubai International Motor Show

• Dubai first timers focus on highly personalised, small volume, future classics
• Car couture artisans include Panoz, David Brown Automotive, Halcon, Alvis and Equus among others

The Middle East’s love for exotic, hand crafted and desirable cars makes the Dubai International Motor Show a haven for a number of burgeoning new companies making their international motor show debut.

Representing the finest in car couture from artisans based in the United Kingdom, the United States and Germany, companies like Panoz, David Brown Automotive, Halcon, Alvis and Equus are not only exhibiting in the Middle East for the first time, but in most cases have never shown their products outside of their home country until now.

Frankfurt-based sports car manufacturer Halcon SuperSport GmbH is displaying its twin-turbocharged V6 sports car for the first time outside of Germany and hopes to lock in a few sales of its dhs1.6million car before taking it to Monaco for its next display in April.

• See more: Dubai International Motor Show in Pictures

“The interest so far here has been outrageous. We have had some interest from Germany, but I think this market in the UAE is much better,” Halcon’s Chief Executive Officer, Rick T. Damm said.

The Halcon SuperSport uses a chassis based on the Nissan 370Z with a fully bespoke interior, carbon fibre body, ceramic brakes and a tweaked version of the Nissan GTR’s 3.8-litre, twin-turbo V6 that develops 800bhp.

“We are only going to produce 25 vehicles worldwide and now we are looking to find some dealerships here in the UAE who can help us with on-ground support,” Mr Damm said.

American muscle with a LeMans racing pedigree is for sale on the Panoz stand where the company is showing its road cars for the first time outside of the United States.

“We’ve raced internationally but we’ve never tried to sell our road cars internationally, so we thought that Dubai was a great place to start,” Panoz Director of Product Planning/Engineering, John M. Leverett said.

“We’ve had a couple of people ask about the GTR 1 which is based on our LeMans racer but we’ve also had some serious inquiries about the Esperante convertible so we can’t complain. The biggest thing now is we’ve got to find a dealer in this area so we can set up service and handle the customers.”

The Esperante is limited to 25 just models to celebrate the company’s 25th anniversary and is completely bespoke allowing customers effectively build their own car.

Also from the United States but taking on a more retro feel is Equus Automotive Incorporated’s muscle-bound 770 coupé.