Russian Electric-Powered Sportscar: Meet Marussia

According to news sources, Nikolay Fomenko who is very well known as a Russian popular singer, television new anchor and theater actor, has used his former career as a car racing champion to develop an idea for sports car making, and thus the Marussia project was born. A former FIA N-GT champion, this unusual Renaissance man has just successfully launched Russia’s first sports car company, Marussia, and the car is a hybrid, to boot.

Fomenko claims that his knowledge as a racing car driver greatly influenced his creation of the Marussia; a pure, hi-tech electronic sports car. Although it possesses many common sports car elements, it still manages to stand out among others of its ilk. The Marussia is slated to use a 240-hp, 3.5-liter, six-cylinder engine, most likely from Renault or Nissan, but it's unclear from where the electric drive components will originate. While much of the car's parts will probably come from established companies, approximately 35% of them will certainly be Russian.

The Marussia will also come with “a host of gadgets,” including a 4G Yota network with 10 Mbps data transfer rates at vehicle speeds of up to 120 km/h. Bluetooth, GPS and video screens abound, and as if that is not enough, the Marussia boasts a 320 GB hard drive to round out the electronics.

The biggest obstacle in the path of the Marussia will be the use of batteries; cold Russian winters will dramatically reduce their efficiency. Fomenko sees the solution to this problem in a “nanotech project made at one of Russia’s big construction bureaus”.

The company predicts a price tag of $100,000 (a mere bag of shells, as Jackie Gleason used to say). Plans have been made for the delivery of the first customer cars next fall, with race versions taking part in the 2010 edition of FIA GT championship.


Go, Fomenko, for you are proof that we are nothing without our dreams.