The Praga Bohema is a £1.1million, 700bhp supercar with Godzilla’s heart

Europe’s supercars are mainly Italian, German, and British… but another nation is in on the action. From the land that brought you Skoda, meet Czechia’s fastest export: the Praga Bohema. It’s not mucking about, is it?

The all-carbon fibre two-seater is not a road-going version of Praga’s R1R racing car. Oh no. The R1R makes do with a willing Renault engine good for 365bhp. The Bohema doesn’t share components with the racer. And courtesy of a Nissan GT-R engine, it’s got 700bhp. 

Praga says they’re the first and only manufacturer to be granted permission to use the GT-R’s 3.8-litre bi-turbo V6 powerplant, which will be built by British tuning specialists Litchfield Motors. Expect to see Bohemas with far more than 700bhp sooner rather than later…

Other engines were considered – including Audi’s splendid 5.2-litre V10, but the more compact, tuneable V6 won out, especially as it helps Praga in its quest to keep the Bohema lightweight. The prototype weighs in at 982kg, but the finished car may yet be even lighter still. 

Also still to be finalised is just how quick the Bohema is. Currently, Praga is estimating 0-62mph in under 3.5 seconds, which sounds like a very pessimistic guess to us. 0-125mph will take less than eight seconds. Top speed: the engineers say they’re simply not interested in an irrelevant big number, when all the fun is had getting the Bohema through the corners as quickly as physics allows. 

Over 900kg of downforce ought to help there. That insectile body is fully carbon fibre and obsessed with channelling air. There’s a real shrinkwrapped look to the car, as if the Godzilla-spec engine is trying to escape through the cooling gills. Meanwhile, the front suspension wishbones have low-drag covers, and even the door mirror’s lengthy supports are shaped to channel cooling air into the intakes.

There’s no active aero, though: an airbrake or adjustable flaps would need a heavy hydraulic system, which offends Praga’s weight-shedding ethos. There is, however, full air-con, and a state of the art touchscreen inside. Sort of. 

Pop open the hatch-like door and you’ll find there is indeed seating for two – the driver sits just ahead of the passenger so the cockpit can be narrower, minimising frontal area to help the aerodynamics. The steering wheel features all the driver’s information readouts, while a roof-mounted switchgear panel looks after climate control. 

Neatly integrated into the spare dashboard structure is a pop-out phone holder with a nearby USB socket. So, full Apple and Android compatibly, instant Spotify or Google Maps streaming, and touchscreen responsiveness a VW ID.3 could only dream of. Praga one, rest of the worst’s infotainment systems, nil. 

Elsewhere inside you’ll find a cupholder (mounted high up near the driver’s head) and electric mirror controls. This is meant to be a useable road car, remember. And that’s why there’s 100 litres of luggage capacity too, courtesy of twin lockers hidden in the flanks ahead of each rear wheel, Murray T50-style. 

It all seems very well-thought out and beautifully finished. But that sort of R&D doesn’t come cheap: the Bohema will set you back a cool £1.1 million, plus taxes, and that’s a lot for an upstart, no matter which country you’re from.

But Praga is bullish, saying that as electrification takes over, there’s a sense of ‘now or never’ for extreme hypercars, and with the likes of the track-only McLaren Solus GT and £5m Red Bull RB17 on the way, there’s clearly demand for mad circuit-demolishing supercars, plus the Praga can also pop to the shops. 

And it’ll be rare, which matters in this game. Only 88 will be built, with deliveries kicking off next year. But if you can’t wait that long, tap on these blue words to have a read of what Praga’s prototype is like to drive around a damp Top Gear test track…