History of the brand
1984 : The very first Venturi, the brainchild of Claude Poiraud and Gérard Godfroy’s combined genius, was unveiled at the Paris Motor Show. The goal was to present the only “Grand Tourisme” French car, while retaining it’s light weight of 850kg for a cylinder capacity of two litres. The headquarters of the company were located in the Pays de Loire in Coueron (44) where almost 700 cars were produced in 20 years.
Renowned for the excellent roadholding of their cars, Venturi has employed innovative methods in many other ways. The 400 GT remains the best performing French car ever produced, it is in fact the very first car in the world to have standard carbon brakes.
High level competition has also brought fame to the brand. Venturi was at the origin of the memorable “Venturi Gentlemen Drivers Trophy”, which gathered an impressive array of 75 drivers.
Venturi has also won fame through its brilliant performances in the Le Mans 24 hours race, particularly in 1993 with Christophe Dechavanne and Jacques Laffite on Venturi Jaccadi team, and in 1995 with Paul Belmondo racing on the 600 SLM.
With the creation of the Venturi-Larrousse team in 1991, Venturi even gave Formula 1 a try.
However it is in the international GT races that Venturi established its pedigree defeating Porsche and Ferrari on several occasions. 1994 was the crowning year for Venturi: in Dijon, with Ferté and Neugarten on the 600 LM Jaccadi, at the 1000 km of Paris with Pescarolo and Basso on the 600 LM, and finally at the 4 hours Spa race, once again with Ferté and Neugarten.
In 2001: Gildo Pallanca Pastor takes Venturi’s destiny in his hands.