After a rigorous, and secretive, seven-year development and testing programme, Praga has presented the first Bohema production supercar and handover of the first customer car by Romain Grosjean on 6th December in The Netherlands.
Since showing the pre-production prototype just two years ago, Praga’s engineering and design teams have fine-tuned the Bohema to meet the team’s ambitious targets. With today’s supercars weighing anything up to 2,000 kg / 4,400 lbs, Praga’s achievement to keep the car comfortable, yet challenging, at 50 per cent of that weight is testament to the skill of the motor racing addicts and competitors that populate the 117-year-old Czech manufacturing organisation.
The Bohema’s uncomplicated design approach features a full carbon body and monocoque, great visibility, an aerodynamic package signed-off (virtually unaltered) in a Formula 1 team’s wind tunnel, and a focus on lightweight engineering. The result? GT3 race car matching lap times on road tyres with genuine ability to drive to and from the track, and enough storage and road compliance to make an overnight hotel stay absolutely achievable.
Jan Martinek, Engineering Director, Praga Cars: “Making something complicated is easy; delivering something supposedly simple is difficult, and we set out to provide a special group of owners with what’s basically a race driver’s supercar: lightweight, all carbon, ultimate aero and high power. You can use it on road and track, on the same day, every day. We wanted it to be the lightest supercar in the world, the fastest on track, and for it to be beautiful: no-one else makes a car like this.”
With an encyclopaedic knowledge of Praga’s history, Martinek also explained, “Even in the early days of automotive design and manufacturing, Praga was known for its innovations in using lightweight engineering and aerodynamics: look at our Super Piccolo road racer from 1934. These core values are presented in the 2025 Praga Bohema, and it could be argued the Bohema is exactly the car that Praga would have developed today if car production hadn’t been halted 80 years ago.”
The road-legal, race-bred, pure combustion Praga Bohema is a truly unique car for 2025.
Engineered for exhilarating power delivery and grin-inducing agility on track, the Bohema’s braking performance has been recognised as its secret weapon, with 380 mm carbon ceramic discs and six-piston calipers combining with the light weight and aero package.
The Praga design and engineering teams – led by Juraj Mitro and Jan Martinek respectively – have developed the Bohema to appeal to all car collectors, but to be only truly exploitable by those who are both brave and experienced behind the wheel. Unsurprising given that racer Romain Grosjean was influential in the car’s origin and advised throughout its development.
The first Praga Bohema has been delivered with a low production run planned for 2025 to ensure superb build quality and the ability to also support owners around the world for servicing and aftersales, track support, and customer handovers. Owners will receive a totally personalised service, befitting such a bespoke car. Each of the cars currently scheduled for delivery already features unique colours and trim details, including bare carbon and gold leaf.
Hand-built by Praga’s, and hand-painted by one of the world’s best (Czech-based) automotive paint shops, the first customer delivery elicited an understated and clear response: “Magnificent!”.
Mark Harrison, Sales and Marketing Director for Praga Cars, said: “The quality of the first Bohema that Praga has delivered cannot be understated. It is very easy to promise car enthusiasts an enticing new vehicle, but incredibly hard to design, develop and then produce a car that delivers on that promise. Praga has done exactly that with the Bohema: a supercar of superb quality in production and performance – with an earned right to be considered by all collectors.”
The Praga factory will ramp up production to a planned one to two cars per month from 2026 through 2028. Praga targets building fewer than 20 cars per year to ensure quality and rarity, with a focus on just five core regions: EU/UK, USA, South Asia, Middle East, and Japan.
Ivan Krakora, Praga Group CMO, said: “Everyone at Praga is humble and proud of this business that was founded in the late-19th Century. We’re also aware that heritage means nothing unless a product is delivered that resonates with today’s car enthusiasts and collectors. Delivering the first customer car is the ultimate confirmation of Praga’s right to exist as a supercar manufacturer: we are proud that automotive connoisseurs have put their faith in Praga.”
The Praga Litchfield PL38DETT 3.8-litre, twin-turbo V6 engine is constructed around an aluminium alloy cylinder block, with double overhead camshafts per cylinder bank, and a continuously variable valve timing system on the inlet valves. The beauty of this engine is not just its sheer performance potential, but also its renowned reliability.
The powertrain is unique and exclusive to the Bohema. Engine development and servicing requirements see Praga working with the UK’s renowned Litchfield Engineering – another long-time friend of the Praga brand. Litchfield has more than two decades of tuning experience and is known as a global authority on bespoke engine projects. Litchfield strips the new engines and converts them to dry sump, which reduces the overall height of the unit by 140 mm (5.5 inches). This allows the engine to sit lower in the Bohema and prevents the risks of oil surge under high-speed cornering.
Praga and Litchfield also developed a number of modifications for increased reliability and power, including swapping to new twin turbos. In this base-Litchfield specification, the Bohema production car delivers 700 bhp at 6,800 rpm and 725 Nm of torque from 3,000 to 6,000 rpm.
The engine breathes out through titanium exhausts with the distinctive V6 sound combining with a sharp engine crackle, tuned so that occupants can still hold a conversation up to road-legal speeds.
The Bohema’s engine is mated to the renowned Hewland sequential gearbox through a robotic clutch allowing for semi-automatic drive mode. This choice of gearbox, equipped with bespoke road-optimised helical cut gears, ensures fast-changing, durability and the ability to handle high torque at a minimum weight.
In classic race car and supercar style, the engine sits directly behind the cockpit, with the transmission behind the engine driving the rear wheels, delivering optimal weight balance and responsiveness in turns. Crucially, the engine and gearbox are independently mounted from the carbon chassis ensuring no sub-woofer style resonance and vibrations are transferred to the cockpit ensuring conversation comfort at legal road speeds. A 65-litre fuel tank ensures road trips can be completed with minimal fuss.
The Bohema aerodynamics package was designed completely in-house by the Praga team, using CFD (computational fluid dynamics) modelling followed by fine-tuning in an F1 team’s wind tunnel. Engineers and designers worked as one to ensure all surfaces look exciting and elegant, yet remain uncompromisingly focused on aerodynamics and performance.
It uses extensive and innovative aerodynamics, including a unique rear spoiler design, achieving more than 900 kg (1,984 lbs) of downforce at 250 km/h (155 mph).
The chassis is an extremely strong, torsionally rigid carbon fibre monocoque construction. All current Praga vehicles are full-carbon cars, benefitting from the local Czech Republic and Slovakian expertise in carbon fibre used by many of Europe’s leading performance car brands.
The lightweight carbon fibre outer panels are attached to the structural segments of the car. The front top panel covers the suspension, with subtle bulges to accommodate the horizontal dampers. At the rear, a single hinged panel covers the engine, transmission and suspension meaning accessing the powertrain is easy (and dramatic for onlookers!). The front wings are not structural, so the mirrors are mounted on long rigid stalks that provide a stylish aerodynamic enhancement alongside excellent rear visibility.
Within the aerodynamically styled rear wheel arches there are deep storage areas, for which custom-fit carbon fibre luggage is available – big enough for a crash helmet, racing suit and boots, or a casual weekend bag. The doors are front hinged and electronically released, with back-up mechanical releases.
The deeply curved trademark Praga windscreen ensures remarkable visibility from inside the cockpit. It is swept clean by an ingenious mechanism – specially developed by Praga – which ensures the windscreen wiper stays in contact with the glass across its full width, yet is also hidden away when not in use. An early design brief ruled out the visually intrusive placement of a single wiper rising vertically up the middle of the windscreen, yet resulted in weeks of design and development, highlighting Praga’s focus on purity and simplicity.
With the race-derived aerodynamically shaped carbon fibre monocoque, the cockpit is necessarily narrow but cleverly shaped to perfectly fit two large adults in race-position comfort. The doors swing open giving access over the bodywork into the cockpit, with steps built into the footwells to allow driver and passenger to lower themselves into position without having to step on the seats. Furthermore, the steering wheel is removable to aid entry and exit.
The driving position can be perfectly tailored with adjustable steering column, pedal box, and seat position and angle. The ergonomically sculpted structure also incorporates moulded recesses for the passenger’s arms and elbows to ensure comfort without infringing on the driver’s space – a great deal of effort was made to ensure a perfect driver’s environment.
The removable steering wheel is a work of art. It incorporates a large digital display, showing speed, gear selected, oil and coolant temperatures, driving mode, and warning lights. To either side is switchgear for indicators, horn and further functions, plus rotary thumbwheel selectors. The rim is beautifully trimmed in Alcantara and the central pad is covered in leather, embossed with the Praga logo. The grip and paddles’ size and positioning were designed to offer ideal steering and shift control regardless of the driver’s hand size.
Launch control and the electronic parking brake are activated from the slim centre console. Either side of the cockpit are the electronic door releases (supplemented by mechanical releases in the roof) plus mirror controls, while the aircon controls are mounted in a stylish ‘fighter jet’ style roof console: Praga’s team took inspiration from the company’s aviation and race car divisions.
An ingenious and hidden sprung-mount bracket above the centre console allows a smart phone to be securely mounted for use as a satnav and performance data monitor. There are storage pockets in the doors and behind the seats to ensure bottles and oddments can be safely stashed.
While everything in the cockpit is designed to contribute to the car’s low weight target and functionality, the aesthetics and attention to detail were not overlooked – the beautifully machined thumbwheels and air vents, the finishing of the interior carbon fibre and the exquisite hand stitching of the Alcantara are perfect examples.
Motor 283 is the biggest automotive website created by a team of automotive enthusiats and this author page is used to show the readers the press releases and news posted on Motor 283 website.
SHARE
