This Italian hypercar, the Kimera K39, has just won the award for best design: customers bought it without ever having driven it

Two weeks ago, we introduced you to A very special Kimera K39, finished in silver-gray and carbon fiber with blue highlights, specially prepared for its first American customer. The 1,000 ch Italian hypercar had arrived in California to take part in Monterey Car Week. It didn’t end up leaving empty-handed: the K39 won the duPont REGISTRY Award for the best automotive design at the event.

A symbolic award for Kimera Automobili. Unlike the EVO37 and EVO38, which were built on a legacy directly linked to Lancia rally cars, the K39 is the first car entirely conceived and designed by the small Piedmontese automaker.

The K39 received an award at The Quail

After Villa d'Este, Aurora, Le Mans Classic and Goodwood, so the K39’s international tour made a stop in Monterey. This was a particularly important event, as California Week brings together some of the world’s most prestigious cars and collections.

It is in The Quail that the K39 won the duPont REGISTRY Award awarding the best design at the event. According to Kimera, the hypercar also became one of the most photographed cars at the event during the week, before making further appearances at the Rolex Gathering, Exotics on Broadway, the Monterey Motorsports Festival, and then Pebble Beach.

The configuration unveiled in California likely played a role in that. The one we showed you earlier combines a Pacific Silver body with an almost chrome-like sheen with exposed Candy Ink Blue carbon fiber accents.

For the interior, Kimera chose Golden Cognac leather, creating a much more elegant contrast than the showroom configuration seen a few weeks earlier at Goodwood.

But beyond the colors, this award primarily recognizes the K39’s very distinctive proportions. Its design clearly draws inspiration from the world of 1980s endurance prototypes, without attempting to directly replicate a historic model. This is a fundamental difference from Kimera’s early designs.

All K39s have already been assigned

The award won in Monterey comes with another piece of news that is likely even more significant for the Italian automaker: all planned units of the K39 have now been allocated to customers.

And she’s not the only one. Kimera has also announced that the EVO38 and EVO38 Collezione Martini are fully booked. This is quite remarkable for a company founded just five years ago, whose first car, the EVO37, has just reached the end of its production run.

The K39 must now transition from a show-car to a true production vehicle. Its development is not yet complete: the final validation phases are currently underway, while production is scheduled to begin in the spring of 2027 (so was the American customer’s gray K39 a prototype?), ahead of the first deliveries. Beneath its spectacular bodywork, nothing has changed regarding the announced powertrain. Kimera is working with Koenigsegg on a specific version of the 5.0-liter twin-turbo V8, producing 1,000 ch and 1,200 Nm, with no hybridization.

A major milestone for the small Italian automaker

For Luca Betti, founder and CEO of Kimera Automobili, the award won in Monterey is obviously a source of pride. But the executive emphasizes another sign of confidence above all: some customers agreed to buy their K39 even before they had a chance to drive it.

This may ultimately be the best illustration of how far we've come. With the EVO37 and EVO38, Kimera had made a name for itself by reviving, in its own way, a certain vision of Lancia race cars. With the K39, the Piedmontese manufacturer is now attempting something more challenging: establishing its own design language and identity (even if it draws heavily on its previous models). In Monterey, in front of some of the world’s most discerning collectors, the initial verdict has just been delivered. And it’s quite flattering.

As a reminder, here's a video of the Kimera K39 prototype at Goodwood!