Brothers launch automotive company and build high–speed supercars

Arrinera is a Warsaw Stock Exchange-listed automotive industry company that designs and builds race and sports car for worldwide use. The company decided to build the first Polish high-performance vehicle ever.

The company was founded by CEO Łukasz Tomkiewicz, a car enthusiast, and his brother Marek Tomkiewicz, who worked in the financial industry. Once the two had funding, they started their first project in 2008 and created their first proof-of-concept car three years later. The design of the company’s first car, the Arrinera Hussarya, was presented in 2012, followed by the first concept prototype in 2014. The racing version, Arrinera Hussarya GT, was revealed to the world for the first time in 2016 at Autosport International in Birmingham. In the same year, it was the first Polish car to be invited to the Goodwood Festival of Speed. Polish automotive journalist Piotr Frankowski drove the car up the famous Goodwood hillclimb in the Supercar class, with the Polish brand running as an equal of such established stalwarts as Ferrari, McLaren, Pagani and Lamborghini.

Arrinera claims that their creations are “supercars”—defined as cars that combine performance, beauty, style, grace and even sometimes brutality, according to the company’s vice president, Piotr Gniadek. He added that a supercar should elicit particular emotions from those who see it: the car’s curves, angles and sounds should come through as a work of art. According to Gniadek, anyone who has seen Arrinera’s cars in person would say they do just that.

Under the hood of Arrinera’s sleek GT-class racecars are V8 engines with more than 420 horsepower, sequential Hewland gearboxes and Öhlins shock absorbers. The braking system contains discs with a 380 mm diameter and six-piston Alcon monobloc calipers. In 2017, the company plans to present the Arrinera Hussarya GT in a road-legal trackday version, so the car can be driven to and from the racetrack. The firm can deliver the car anywhere in the world and plans to create a mobile service team to perform basic maintenance and repairs. 

The cars have been tested by British driver Anthony Reid, who has worked for brands such as Porsche and Ferrari.

In cooperation with the Warsaw University of Technology, Arrinera has developed active aerodynamics for the car. It has three prototypes thus far. The first prototype helped engineers to gather basic information about the settings and perfect the car’s form and functionality. The second test car—an attempt to build a street car—was presented in Poznań. After a series of developments, the company decided to focus on building racecars. Arrinera Hussarya GT is the third prototype that the firm designed.

From the cars’ names to their design, Arrinera wanted to incorporate Poland’s history to show that the country has a lot of potential. Gniadek said, “We want to remind those who have forgotten and to show those who don’t know, that Poles contributed to the development of Europe in a big way.”