Historic automotive company Praga just recently announced their all-new road legal hypercar in pre-production prototype form: the Praga Bohema. This gorgeous, high-performance, low-volume car was designed around three core principles: lightweight, carbon, and petrol.
Extremely lightweight, the Praga Bohema weighs only 982 kgs – wet without fuel – and it was designed with carbon fiber monocoque, a race-oriented, fully adjustable suspension and is equipped with a powerful Nissan GT-R-derived six-cylinder, twin-turbo engine. Matched with a race-derived semi-automatic transmission, the Bohema ensures reliability, ease of servicing, unique on-road experience, potential for additional performance tuning (if desired), and track-focused performance.
The Praga Bohema was inspired by long-time Praga friend and ambassador, former Formula 1 and current IndyCar driver Romain Grosjean. He challenged Praga to create a genuine, uncompromised, two-person road and track performance car that promises to deliver a truly unique driving experience.
Unsurprisingly, he was part of the Bohema project and in a recent track test in the challenging six-kilometer Slovakia Ring circuit, the car’s seamless transition from road to track was showcased.
Romain shared, “I was astonished by the Bohema’s amazing performance on track, its accessibility on road, and the ease of transition between the two. Praga has truly delivered on my challenge! On the road, you get a smooth ride, the car eliminates the bumps, you can chat with the passenger, and everything is calm and OK. Then simply switch focus and you are on the track. The same clothes, the same car, but the feeling changes and you are pushing the limit and collecting amazing lap times again and again, discovering unbelievable possibilities in the Bohema. And we still have a few months to fine-tune the on-road compliance and on-track lap times!”
Developed by Praga’s small but talented team of engineers and designers, the Bohema is an all-new design with its aerodynamics tested and perfected in a Formula 1 team’s wind tunnel. The Bohema’s extensive aero provides more than 900 kgs of downforce at 250 km/h, it has a top speed of just a little more than 300 kph which is the fastest speed that is achievable in virtually any racetrack.
Most importantly, the aerodynamics that was engineered into the Bohema did not adversely affect the gorgeous and powerful design of Praga’s latest hypercar. It features Praga Gold painted duraluminium details on the door hinges, and it also has a tow hook that features an integrated rear-facing camera that stands out on the Praga blue show car, showing the company’s attention to detail. The Praga Bohema is a rare car that does not only impress in terms of design, but it also delivers on the performance.
For the interior, it has a narrow, aerodynamically perfected cockpit that seats two adults. It also features a fully adjustable driver’s seat, steering wheel and pedals, useful rear visibility, air conditioning, and generous luggage space.
With lightweight design of utmost importance, the interior was given 56 individual carbon parts, trimmed with high-quality Alcantara and leather, while other parts of the hypercar extensively used carbon fiber, magnesium alloys, and titanium.
Pushrod-operated adjustable dampers mounted horizontally were used for the independent suspension so as to minimize bodywork height while also maximizing travel. It is also equipped with 18-inch front and 19-inch rear central-locked wheels to achieve on-road compliance through their large tire walls. However, 18-inch wheels on all four corners of the hypercar will be accepted, ensuring compatibility with the FIA GT3 spec tire dimension, as it is the race tire that has the widest possible range of competition tires globally. Braking power is provided by durable yet lightweight 380 mm carbon ceramic discs with six-piston calipers.
The Praga Bohema is in its final few months of development and it already has road and track programs scheduled in the UK, Europe, and Middle East at the Slovakia Ring home circuit.
Priced at €1.28m / £1.1m – not including taxes, the hypercar is scheduled to start production in Czech Republic at around the second half of 2023. For now, only 10 cars are scheduled for production for 2023. In the same year, a global client visitor and spec’ing headquarters will be established in England to build on the growing race program of Praga in the UK.
For the next four years, approximately 20 cars per year are scheduled to be hand-built to ensure the exclusivity of the model. Praga has plans of offering their clients track handover programs with their experienced test-driver line-up to guarantee that the full performance and capabilities of the Bohema are understood and accessible.
Praga Bohema in detail
Powertrain
Praga Bohema’s engine is based on Nissan’s renowned 3.8-liter twin-turbo V6 engine that they have used in their GT-R models since 2007. Nissan’s experience at Le Mans had the engine constructed around an aluminum alloy cylinder block, and each cylinder bank had double overhead camshafts and a continuously variable valve timing system on the inlet valves. Some of the advantages of this engine is its reliability, tunability, and its pure performance potential.
Praga gets brand new GT-R engines from Nissan for the Bohema. Praga also partnered with renowned Litchfield Engineering, another long-time friend of the brand, to develop and service the engine. WIth more than two decades of tuning experience, Litchfield Engineering has built their reputation as the global authority on GT-R engines. New engines are stripped and converted to dry sump, reducing the height of the unit by 140 mm. This allows Praga to put the engine lower in the Bohema, preventing the risk of oil surge in high-speed cornering loads.
Litchfield also does a number of modifications on the engine to increase its reliability and power, and this includes swapping the engine to new twin turbos. In the base-Litchfield specification, Praga aims to have the Bohema production car to deliver up to 700 bhp at 6,800 rpm with 725 Nm of torque from 3,000 to 6,000 rpm. Litchfield, however, is also known to build 1000 bhp-plus engines from the GT-R unit.
The engine is equipped with titanium exhausts and the silencers are provided by the catalytic convertors, providing a sharp crackle to the engine to keep it within normal circuit noise limits. This ensures that the occupants of the Bohema will be able to hold a conversation even when it is way above the legal road speed limits. It is matched with the renowned Hewland sequential gearbox through a robotic clutch so that semi-automatic drive mode is enabled. Equipped with bespoke road-optimized helical cut gears, the gearbox ensures instant shifts, durability, as well as the capability to handle high torque at a minimum weight.
Like most typical race cars and supercars, the engine was placed directly behind the cockpit, with the transmission that drives the rear wheels placed behind the engine. This allows for optimal weight balance and responsiveness when turning. The engine and gearbox are independently mounted from the carbon chassis so that loud subwoofer style resonance and vibrations does not get through to the cockpit from the engine bay. It also has a 74-liter fuel tank for longer, hassle-free drives.
Chassis and bodywork
The Praga team worked tirelessly on the design and style of the Bohema, using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling and then fine-tuning it with the use of the F1 team’s wind tunnel. Engineers and designers worked together to ensure that all surfaces are both elegant and exciting, and still contribute to the performance and aerodynamic efficiency of the Bohema.
With extensive and innovative aerodynamics together with a unique rear spoiler design gives the Bohema over 900 kgs of downforce at 250 kph.
Praga’s modern cars were designed to be all-carbon race cars, so it is unsurprising that the Bohema has an extremely strong, torsionally rigid carbon fiber monocoque construction. The monocoque was attached with lightweight carbon fiber outer panels.
The front top panel protects the suspension, and subtle curves were added to accommodate the horizontal dampers. The rear has a single penal that covers the engine, transmission, and suspension.
Deep storage areas can be found in the aerodynamically designed rear wheel arches allowing for custom-fit leather luggage that is big enough to fit a crash helmet, racing suit, and boots, or even a casual weekend bag. Praga kept their trademark curved windscreen, providing now only great visibility inside the cockpit, but they also developed a specially designed windscreen wiper that ensures that it stays in contact with the glass across the full width of the windscreen.
Cockpit
With a race-focused carbon fiber monocoque, the cockpit is narrow, but it can perfectly and comfortably fit two large adults in race position. For easy ingress and egress, the doors swing open and steps are built into the footwells so that driver and passenger are able to lower themselves into the seats without stepping on the seats. The steering wheel is also removable for additional ease and comfort during entry and exit.
To get that perfect driving position, the Bohema has an adjustable steering column, pedal box, and seat position and angle. The structure is ergonomically sculpted to maximize the recesses for the passenger’s arms and elbows for comfort and also so that it would not infringe on the space of the driver. All details were given attention to ensure the perfect environment for the driver.
Even the removable steering wheel is impressive. It has a large digital display that shows speed, gear selected, driving mode, warning lights, as well as oil and coolant temperatures. On either side sits the switchgear for indicators, horn, and other functions, and even rotary thumbwheel selectors. The central pad is wrapped in leather and showcases an embossed Praga logo, while the rim is trimmed in beautiful Alcantara. Even the grip and the size of the paddles were designed to ensure comfort in steering and shifting for all drivers.
Further controls can be seen in the slim center console including the launch control, built-in fire extinguisher trigger, and the electronic parking brake. Both sides of the cockpit has mirror controls and the electronic door releases which are supplemented by mechanical releases in the roof. Aircon controls are placed on the roof console in a stylish ‘fighter jet’ style, which was inspired by the company’s aviation and race car divisions.
Above the center console is a cleverly designed and hidden spring-mount bracket that enables a smartphone to be securely mounted to be used as a satnav and performance data monitor. Storage pockets are also cleverly designed into the doors and behind the seats for bottles and for other assorted items can be stored.
Though designed to be lightweight and functional, the aesthetics were not ignored. It has beautifully machined thumbwheels and air vents, and features carbon fiber and exquisite hand stitching of the Alcantara.
Market
Project planning and testing has taken Praga five years, and now, the Bohema is going through the final development program in the UK, Europe, and MIddle East. Final production specification will be released in the first half of 2023.
The Bohema is available as a road-legal supercar in all major hypercar markets. For now, they are also open and in discussion with possible sales and aftersales partners in countries like Australia, Hong Kong, Germany, Japan, Spain, South Africa, UAE, Taiwan, UK, and USA.
From their new headquarters in England, Praga Cars UK will be managing the global brand hub of the Bohema, providing clients with hospitality, test drive, and spec’ing facilities. Recently, the Bohema development team did a test program from the Dunsfold test track that became famous through Top Gear TV.
Praga is committed to hand-build around 20 cars per year in their four- to five-year production program. In 2023, they will be producing a maximum of 10 cars to ensure that the finest Bohema cars for the first clients.
