W Motors Lykan Hypersport: The Diamond-Encrusted Debut

In 2012, a new automotive company was founded in Beirut, Lebanon, with a wildly ambitious goal: to create the first Arab supercar. The company, W Motors (later relocated to Dubai, UAE), wanted to build a vehicle that reflected the extreme wealth, luxury, and futuristic vision of the Middle East.

At the 2013 Qatar Motor Show, they unveiled their creation: the Lykan Hypersport.

Priced at an astonishing $3.4 million, it was, at the time of its release, the third most expensive production car ever built (behind only the Lamborghini Veneno and the one-off Maybach Exelero). The Lykan didn’t justify its price tag solely through lap times or top speed records; it justified it through sheer, unapologetic opulence, featuring materials previously unheard of in automotive manufacturing.

The Design: Aggression and Diamonds

The exterior design of the Lykan Hypersport, penned by Anthony Jannarelly, is hyper-aggressive. It features sharp, intersecting angular lines inspired by the Arabic symbol for the number seven (considered a lucky number).

The body is crafted entirely from carbon fiber, and the doors are uniquely designed “reverse dihedral” units (they hinge from the rear and swing upward and backward).

However, the most famous feature of the exterior design is hidden within the headlights. To justify the astronomical price tag, W Motors embedded the titanium LED headlight blades with 420 diamonds (totaling 15 carats). If diamonds weren’t to the buyer’s taste, W Motors offered to integrate rubies, sapphires, or emeralds into the headlights based on the customer’s color preference.

The taillights were equally dramatic, featuring layered, blade-like LED elements that extended far out from the rear fascia.

The Powertrain: RUF Engineering

W Motors was a startup design and marketing firm; they did not have the engineering capability to design a hypercar engine from scratch. Instead, they partnered with one of the most respected names in the tuning industry: RUF Automobile of Germany.

RUF supplied a heavily modified 3.7-liter twin-turbocharged flat-six engine (based on Porsche architecture). Mounted mid-ship, this engine produced 780 horsepower and 960 Nm (708 lb-ft) of torque.

Power was routed to the rear wheels via a 7-speed dual-clutch transmission (also developed with Porsche/RUF components).

Because the car weighed a relatively light 1,380 kg (3,042 lbs), the performance was brutal. The Lykan Hypersport was claimed to accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h (62 mph) in just 2.8 seconds, reaching a theoretical top speed of 395 km/h (245 mph).

The Interior: Holograms and Gold Thread

The extreme luxury of the exterior extended into the cabin. The interior was swathed in the finest leathers, and the stitching on the seats was sewn using gold thread.

The most futuristic element of the interior was the infotainment system. Instead of a traditional touchscreen, the Lykan featured an interactive holographic display system with gesture control. It projected a 3D interface into the air above the center console, allowing the driver to change radio stations or adjust the climate control by swiping their hands through the hologram.

Purchasing the car also came with a few unique perks, including a dedicated 24-hour global concierge service and a bespoke Cyrus Klepcys watch valued at over $200,000.

The “Furious 7” Jump

Despite its incredible luxury and price tag, the Lykan Hypersport was largely unknown to the general public until 2015.

That year, the car was featured prominently as the hero vehicle in the blockbuster film Furious 7. In one of the most famous (and physically impossible) stunts in the franchise’s history, Vin Diesel’s character jumps the Lykan out of the window of an Etihad Towers skyscraper in Abu Dhabi, flying through the air and crashing into the adjacent skyscraper, before jumping out of that building into a third.

To film the sequence, W Motors built ten cheaper fiberglass stunt replicas (using Porsche Boxster chassis). Nine were completely destroyed during filming. The surviving stunt car was later sold at auction as an NFT package.

Rarity and Successor

W Motors planned to build a strict limit of just seven units of the Lykan Hypersport for customers globally.

While the Lykan was more of a rolling jewelry box than a dedicated track weapon, it successfully served its primary purpose: it put W Motors on the map. The incredible publicity generated by the car allowed the company to develop a less expensive, more mass-produced successor called the Fenyr SuperSport, establishing a legitimate hypercar manufacturing presence in the Middle East.