Purity, power and presence: Praga presents first Bohema production car

Just two years after revealing the Bohema pre-production prototype, Czech manufacturer Praga delivers the first customer car

“We always promised no concepts, no teasers, no b-s… just a pure, lightweight, very fast and beautifully appointed road-legal race car for a limited number of supercar buyers who can really drive – and that’s what we have delivered.” Tomas Kasparek, Owner, Praga

• Praga reveals official first images of the 2025 Bohema production car and first customer car.
• Specification targets:
  • Bespoke Praga Litchfield 3.8-litre six-cylinder twin-turbo engine producing 700 bhp
  • Vehicle weight 1,000 kg / 2,300 lbs
  • Top speed of 317 km/h / 197 mph
• Seamless transition between road and track, with adjustable suspension and ride height, communicative handling, powerful braking, 2G cornering, and effortless overtaking potential
• Each Bohema is hand-built with bare carbon and bespoke paint finishes available including gold leaf detailing
• First customer car delivered to client in Netherlands, 6^th December 2024
• Next Bohema deliveries scheduled for European and US owners in spring 2025
• Production limited to sub-20 cars per year (spec-dependent) over next four years
• New supercar marks Praga’s return to road car production after 77 years

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.”

Praga Bohema: overview

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-19^th 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.”

Praga Bohema: in detail

The historic automotive company Praga already has in its portfolio the single-seat LMP-style R1 race car, the 28-run ultra-exclusive ZS800 motorcycle, a family of racing karts, and even a newly certified STOL airplane. Now, supercars join the line-up as the first production road-legal Bohema models make their way to customers around the world.

The Bohema is a high-performance, low-volume, beautifully-appointed supercar designed around three core principles: lightweight, carbon, combustion. It is a uniquely styled, rare and exclusive car that’s capable of being driven to the track, completing lap after lap at high speed, and then driving home.

Longstanding Praga friend and ambassador, and experienced race driver, Romain Grosjean challenged Praga to deliver a genuine uncompromised two-person road/track performance car, promising a truly unique driver experience.

He was subsequently involved in the Bohema development and highlighted the car’s seamless transition from road to track while delivering extensive test sessions on the challenging six-kilometre Slovakia Ring circuit.

Romain Grosjean, racer and development driver: “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 bumps, you can chat with the passenger, and everything is calm. 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 achieving amazing lap times again and again, discovering unbelievable possibilities in the Bohema.”

The Bohema is an all-new design, developed by Praga’s small, but talented team of engineers and designers, and perfected in an F1 team’s wind tunnel. It uses a race-derived carbon fibre monocoque, with extensive aero providing more than 900 kg (almost 2,000 lbs) of downforce at 250 km/h (155 mph). Top speed is 317 km/h (197 mph) – the fastest speed achievable on virtually any racetrack.

Crucially, the car’s aerodynamically-inspired engineering has not eliminated elegant and intriguingly designed bodywork, which ensures the car’s looks match its capability. Praga’s attention to detail is reflected in high-quality machined Duralumin details including door hinges and a tow hook.

Unlike many racetrack-derived performance cars, the Bohema’s ingenious interior ergonomics delivers a narrow, aerodynamically honed cockpit yet seats two, two-metre-tall adults with a fully adjustable driver’s seat, steering wheel and pedals, generous luggage space, aircon and good all-round visibility.

Praga’s challenge to hit the sub-tonne target weight was highlighted during the development by its extensive use of carbon fibre, and magnesium alloys and titanium. The cockpit alone boasts impressive lightweighting statistics: structurally designed with 56 individual carbon parts, and trimmed with high-quality Alcantara and leather, the cockpit’s entire target weight is just 34 kg (75 lbs).

Its independent suspension uses pushrod-operated adjustable dampers mounted horizontally for maximum travel while minimising bodywork height. In such a lightweight car, with just 180 kg (396 lbs) of unsprung mass, Praga’s development engineers were still able to keep the suspension supple enough for road use without having to resort to weight-adding adaptive suspension systems.

The central-locked wheels are 18 inches at the front and 19 inches at the rear to offer on-road compliance through their large tyre walls. To ensure compatibility with the FIA GT3 spec tyre dimensions, the Bohema will accept 18-inch wheels all-round, also the race tyre size with the widest range of competition tyres globally. The powerful brakes use lightweight but durable 380 mm carbon ceramic discs with six-piston calipers.

Praga plans to hand-build fewer than 20 cars annually over the following four years ensuring exclusivity for owners. To ensure owners experience the full performance and capabilities of the Bohema in a safe and controlled environment, Praga also plans an owner track handover programme with guidance provided by its experienced test-driver line-up.

Powertrain

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.

Chassis and bodywork

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.

Cockpit

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.

Market

Seven years since project planning, and testing on track and road began, the €1.43m (+ taxes) Praga Bohema is available to order direct from the factory and, ultimately, through a small number of specialist sales and service centres: Praga will assist any enthusiast to buy the car, but to keep close to customers it will support all owners directly after purchase, so is focusing on the UK and Europe (maximum 20 cars), the Middle East (maximum 12 cars), South Asia (maximum 16 cars), Japan (maximum 12 cars) and the USA (maximum 24 cars).

Praga in motorsport

Many up-and-coming drivers have cut their teeth in recent years in Praga’s renowned karts, which have been raced worldwide for more than a decade, making it one of the world’s most successful kart manufacturers, having twice won FIA world championships in the past decade.

In recent years, Praga’s R1 race car has also become a growing force in racing across the UK, Europe and North America. These carbon fibre monocoque, mid-engined race cars are known for their impressive downforce, performance and handling, combined with their reliability, affordable running costs and ease of maintenance.

As an example of Praga’s successes, in 2020 the R1 scored overall victory in the highly competitive Britcar Endurance series; in 2021, now in its own Britcar Endurance class, R1s took seven wins out of nine races against far more exotic and expensive-to-run GT3 machinery and prototypes; in 2022 a new one-make Praga Cup UK attracted widespread attention and top-level drivers; in the last two seasons R1 race wins have been achieved in Australia, Dubai and the USA, accompanied by record sales.

Praga history

Praga was one of the biggest and oldest car brands pre-World War II and is proud of its rich history. It dates back to the late 1800s as a heavy industrial manufacturer of everything from bridges to steam trains, and it was a significant presence in Central Europe during the first half of the 20th century. It moved into vehicle production in the early 1900s, making its first car in 1907, becoming a major manufacturer of cars, motorcycles, commercial vehicles and aircraft. Praga-built trucks, in particular, dominated the roads in the firm’s native Czechoslovakia.

The company also developed a wide range of passenger cars and motorcycles, especially during the 1930s. These included the stunning BD500 motorbike and the sporting Praga Alfa car, which heroically won the important 1933 1000 Miles of Czechoslovakia road race. Even in the early days of automotive design and manufacturing, Praga was known for its innovations in using lightweight engineering and aerodynamics, a core value presented in the 2025 Praga Bohema: in fact, it could be argued the Bohema is exactly the car that Praga would have developed today if car production hadn’t been forcibly halted 80 years ago.

Car production declined after WWII when the communist government dictated Praga concentrated on making trucks and transmissions. Skoda, instead, was favoured as the country’s car manufacturer of choice, with Tatra instructed to build luxury cars and trucks.

With the fall of Communism in Czechoslovakia in 1989, Praga – still a major presence around Central Europe – was able to set its own agenda again as a privately owned company. In the mid-1990s, while still producing trucks and large-unit gearboxes, Praga introduced a range of motocross motorcycles; followed in the early 2000s with specialist go-anywhere trucks that have most recently achieved strong results in Dakar rallies, and then in 2009 by racing karts. It also works in aviation, with major engine-testing contracts that give its engineers access to the very best aerodynamic expertise. An innovative, STOL Praga airplane is soon to take to the skies from the company’s Praga Avia division.

In 2012 Praga re-entered the race car market with the launch of the R4S then the R1 race cars that today win in one-make, mixed prototype and mixed endurance race series in Australia, Dubai, the UK and USA. The Bohema shares no single part with the R1, but the race car inspired the one-off street-legal R1R prototype – itself providing the catalyst for a more premium, higher-performance and visually dramatic two-seat supercar: the road-legal track-focused Praga Bohema.                                   

Standard Vehicle Specification: Praga Bohema – road-legal supercar

• Weight (wet): target 1,000 kg (2,300 lbs)
• Weight to Power: 1.40 kg/hp or 713 bhp/tonne
• Interior: bespoke steering wheel, switchgear and systems
  • Pedals, seat, and steering wheel adjustable
  • Leather / Alcantara trimmed seats and surfaces
• Exterior: 2 x 50 litre side pods with bespoke leather luggage
  • Aerodynamics honed at an F1 wind tunnel

Chassis key features:

• Left / Right hand drive 2-seat configuration
• Mid-rear mounted engine
• Rear wheel drive
• Structural design of carbon composite monocoque and rear mounted chrome-moly frame
• Carbon fibre body panels
• 18” front; 19” rear aluminium wheels / Surface Transform carbon disc brakes / 6-pot calipers

Powertrain key features:

• Praga – Litchfield PL38DETT engine 3.8l V6 twin-turbo
• 6-speed sequential gearbox with paddle shift operation
• Bespoke turbo, dry sump and titanium exhaust system

Performance:

• 700 bhp @ 6,800 rpm
• 725 Nm between 3,000 and 6,000 rpm
• 0 – 100 km/h (62 mph): 2.3s
• Downforce: 900 kg (1,984 lbs) @ 250 km/h (155 mph)
• Top speed: 317 km/h (197 mph)