In 2001, Roland Gumpert proposed a new generation of sports car, one that would be race-ready yet also street-legal. After Gumpert returned to Germany from China at the end of 2001, his former colleague at Audi and founder of Motoren Technik Mayer, Roland Meyer, asked him to assist in building a prototype sports car. Audi approved Gumpert's involvement in this project on the condition that the new sports car would be a series product and not a prototype.
The company was founded in 2004 under the name "GMG Sportwagenmanufaktur Altenburg GmbH". The technical guidelines were defined and the first designs of the car were drawn by Marco Vanetta. Upon Vanetta's completion of this process, the first 1:4 scale model of Gumpert's car was produced in 2002.
Gumpert continued with the development of the car now called the Apollo, along with the Technical University of Munich and the Ingolstadt University of Applied Sciences. They assisted him with the construction work, computer simulations, and wind tunnel tests. This research and development helped form the blueprint for the first full-scale model. Finally two prototype cars were constructed. The production of the Apollo started in October 2005. Many variants of the Apollo were introduced throughout its production cycle.
