Also probably the only story you’ll see today about a Venturi, but who’s counting?
Like a lot of Petrolicious videos, this is a father-son story. But the tale of Geordan Fusi and his 1991 Venturi Atlantique 260 APC is a bit more involved. When Geordan was a boy, his father worked at the scrappy but often-troubled French GT carmaker. He even showed his friends photos of his dad working on prototypes if they didn’t believe him.
Venturi, if you are not familiar, began in the 1980s and spent a decade and a half making fiberglass mid-engined sports cars with Peugeot-Renault-Volvo engines. Though they were impressive performance cars and often well-received by the motoring press at the time, they sold poorly and the company went bankrupt in 2000. These days it’s back in some form trying to make electric cars.
(Turn on captions for English subtitles.)
Back to Geordan. Years later he was shopping for a car, and after being unimpressed with the Nissan 350Z (I’ve been there too, buddy) his dad came across an ad for, of all things, a Venturi 260 APC. Surprisingly it was even in his budget.
(Fun fact: APC stands for “Avec Pot Catalytic,” meaning it has a catalytic converter, unlike the earlier SPC model. If you know French you probably can guess what that stood for.)
So Geordan is one of the rare few folks in the world who owns a car his father actually worked on. As the video notes, today they often go on vintage rallies together, and Geordan is one of the younger people in these things.
It’s an unusual choice for sure, but I say you can be any age to enjoy pop-up headlights, a 260 horsepower turbocharged 2.8-liter PRV V6, and a badge that most people—even in France—know very little about. What a machine!