A year after Jay Leno's first look, the NILU's 6.5-liter V12 has fired up, beaten its 1,070 hp target on the dyno and is headed to Germany for the first driving prototype. Nilu27 still hasn't shown the car driving or announced a price or delivery date.
A year after Jay Leno got his first look at it, the NILU hypercar has cleared the hurdle that stops most start-up supercars: its engine runs. Nilu27, the company founded by former Lamborghini, Bugatti and Koenigsegg designer Sasha Selipanov and his wife Inna, fired its own 6.5-liter V12 for the first time on Jun 17, 2026 at Hartley Engines in Palmerston North, New Zealand. On its first dyno runs the engine beat the 1,070 hp figure the company has quoted since 2024 and reached its 11,000 rpm redline (Nilu27 press release).
Next comes the big test. The engine is going to Nilu27's research and production base in Lahr, Germany, where it will go into the company's first driving prototype (Nilu27 press release; Motor1). As of Oct 20, 2026, Nilu27 hasn't shown that prototype driving, and it hasn't published a price or a delivery date.
Hartley built the engine for Nilu27 from scratch. It's a naturally aspirated V12 with an 80-degree angle between its cylinder banks and no turbos or hybrid help (Motor1; Driven). Its "Hot V" layout flips the usual arrangement: the exhaust pipes run up between the cylinder heads, so the heat leaves straight out of the NILU's open engine bay (Nilu27 press release). Nilu27's 2024 press kit adds 12 individual throttle bodies and an exhaust system 3D-printed in Inconel, a heat-resistant alloy (Nilu27 press kit). The company's site lists peak torque of 860 Nm (about 634 lb-ft) at 7,000 rpm (Nilu27).
I've been in the automotive and hypercar industry for more than 25 years, and I've never seen a brand new engine configuration fire-up and run this smoothly on the first attempt. ... This is a massive win for our production timeline and performance targets.
— Simon Waegner, CTO/COO of Nilu27, in the Jul 13, 2026 press release
One number has moved since the 2024 reveal. At launch, Top Gear reported the engine would rev to close to 12,000 rpm, and Edmunds quoted 12,000 rpm (Top Gear; Edmunds). The company now gives 11,000 rpm as the redline, which is the figure we use. New Zealand's Driven reports that some engine parts can run higher than that (Driven). Driven also notes that Hartley Engines CEO Nelson Hartley is the brother of three-time Le Mans winner Brendon Hartley.
The engine may outlive this one car. Nilu27 says inquiries from other carmakers led it and Hartley to finalize a joint venture that will design and build similar high-performance, road-certified engines for other companies (Nilu27 press release). No customers have been named.
Nilu27's site lists a seven-speed manual gearbox from CIMA in Italy, a dry weight of 1,200 kg (about 2,646 lb) and a top speed limited to 400 km/h (about 249 mph). The suspension uses double wishbones and pushrods front and rear. Stopping comes from Brembo carbon-ceramic brakes with CCM-R Plus rotors, and the car rides on Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 R tires, 265/35 R20 front and 325/30 R21 rear, mounted on wheels made by AppTech in Italy. Its 0–100 km/h time is listed only as "driver-dependent" (Nilu27). The 2024 press kit adds a carbon fiber tub with aluminum tube subframes, gullwing doors, an open-gate shifter with a reverse lockout, and center-lock wheels (Nilu27 press kit).
Weight figures don't fully match. The site says 1,200 kg dry. The description of Jay Leno's episode lists a target weight of 1,250 kg (Jay Leno's Garage), and HotCars' write-up of the episode says around 2,800 pounds (HotCars). Dry weight leaves out fluids, so a higher running figure is normal, but Nilu27 hasn't published a curb weight.
The cabin is the point of the car. The only screen is a rear-view camera display; everything else is analog gauges and physical switches, and the round steering wheel has no buttons and no drive modes (Nilu27 press kit). On Leno's show the team also pointed out that the car has real catalytic converters (HotCars).
Selipanov worked on the Lamborghini Huracán, led exterior design at Bugatti during the Chiron years, and designed the Koenigsegg Gemera and CC850 (Top Gear video; Jay Leno's Garage). The NILU name blends the names of the couple's daughters, Nika and Lucia, and the 27 is a nod to Gilles Villeneuve's racing number (Top Gear video; Driven). Top Gear's filmed first look came out on Aug 7, 2024, and the car made its public debut at Monterey Car Week later that month (Edmunds; notenoughcylinders).
Jay Leno's 25-minute first look came out on Nov 24, 2025 (Jay Leno's Garage). According to HotCars, Inna Selipanov told Leno the company had been self-funded so far and was looking for outside investors, and that the plan was to build the car in southern Germany (HotCars).
That marks a change from 2024. The launch release said Aria Group in Irvine, California, would assemble the first prototypes and the first batch of customer cars while Nilu27 built up its own facilities, and that four of the 54 road cars would be one-offs (Nilu27 press kit). The July 2026 release calls Lahr the company's research and production base and doesn't mention Aria assembling cars (Nilu27 press release). Aria is still listed as a partner on Nilu27's site (Nilu27). notenoughcylinders, which covered the project in September, says reported details such as Aria building customer cars and sales moving to 2027 are not confirmed by the company (notenoughcylinders).
No NILU has been sold or delivered, so there is no resale record yet. The closest finished car is the Gordon Murray T.50, another naturally aspirated V12 with a manual gearbox, built in a run of 100 road cars. The first T.50 offered at public auction sold for $5.63 million at RM Sotheby's in Abu Dhabi on Dec 5, 2025 (RM Sotheby's), and another sold for $8.035 million at Broad Arrow's California Mille sale in April 2026 (Broad Arrow). The Pagani Utopia, a twin-turbo V12 that buyers can order with a seven-speed manual, is another reference point: an early 2024 car with the automated gearbox sold for CHF 3,267,500 at RM Sotheby's in Zurich on Oct 11, 2025 (RM Sotheby's). Those are proven cars from established makers; the NILU still has to prove it can be built and delivered. Our Gordon Murray T.50 and Pagani Utopia price guides track those sales, and our story on the return of the manual hypercar covers the wider trend.
Confirmed: a running 6.5-liter V12 that beat its power target, the full spec sheet, a German base and a plan to build engines for other companies. Not confirmed: a driving prototype, a price, a delivery date or who will assemble customer cars. Plenty of start-up hypercars never get as far as a running engine, so June's fire-up is real progress. The first drive in Lahr is the milestone that will show whether the NILU becomes a car you can buy.
What it means for buyers: there's no public way to order one, no published price and no delivery date. Treat the reported $2.8 million figure and any 2027 timing as targets until Nilu27 puts them in writing. Watch for three things: the first driving prototype, details of the Hartley engine venture, and an official price and build schedule.
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