This is the new electric sports car from Detroit Electric, which is due to go on display at the Shanghai Motor Show next month.
Now, the chances are that you've never heard of Detroit Electric, and there's a very good reason for this -- the company produced its last car in 1939. Consequently, the only people old enough to remember Detroit Electric are now in their 80s. And, knowing old people, they've probably forgotten anyway.
So, why is a 100-year-old American car manufacturer being brought back from the grave in order to lend its name to a new electric sports car? Well, in its day, Detroit Electric was one of the most innovative car manufacturers around and only now are we beginning to appreciate just how ahead-of-its-time it was.
This is because Detroit Electric was one of the USA's leading electric car makers. Thomas Edison had one. So did John D. Rockefeller Jr and Mamie Eisenhower. Even Clara Ford -- wife of Henry -- had a Detroit Electric, which must have caused no end of arguments around the dinner table.
You see, back in the early days of motoring, electric cars were quite popular. However, very quickly they became unpopular, precipitating the bankruptcy of firms like Detroit Electric and the emergence of the internal combustion engine as the method of choice for powering the world's vehicles. Now, of course, oil is becoming more expensive, environmentalists are becoming noisier and, as a result, electric cars are back in vogue.
Very little is known about the Detroit Electric sports car, but we can reveal that it'll be a two-seater, and the first of an entire family of new electric cars to come out of Detroit. The company plans to sell more than 2,500 sports cars annually and will create more than 180 jobs in Detroit by the end of 2013.
Don Graunstadt, CEO, North America Operations at Detroit Electric, said: "We are proud to become the fourth car manufacturer born out of Detroit, and the first to manufacture a pure electric sports car from Michigan.
"We are committed to doing our part for this great revival of Detroit through innovation, entrepreneurship and determination -- what we like to call 'Detroit 2.0'."
The Detroit Electric sports car will make its debut in Detroit next month before its Shanghai Motor Show reveal, and will go on sale by the end of August this year.
