Many startup companies have formed in the automotive industry over the last two decades. While many of them revolved around electric power and fuel efficiency technologies, others set out to reinvent automotive speed, innovation, performance, and emotional value.
The best example of this is Oilstainlab, an unconventional hypercar manufacturer that brings a love of emotionalism, beautiful technology, and groundbreaking mechanical engineering to the global automotive market. Oilstainlab doesn’t just want to manufacture new vehicles. Its vision is to blend automotive art, culture, and design to create long-lasting emotional and cultural value for its vehicles.
Oilstainlab Collaborates with Delphi for Its Recent European Tour
On June 24th, 2026, the founding twin brothers of Oilstainlab, Nikita and Iliya Bridan, officially launched their European tour to showcase their one-of-a-kind prototype hypercar called the Half-11. The official name of the tour is the “Half-11 Eurovision Summer Tour.”
The debut of the tour will premiere the car at Ultrace in Gdańsk, Poland, on June 27th and 28th. Then it will be on display at HEIZR Racing Dept at Hockenheimring, Germany, on July 4th before finishing the tour at the exclusive Tutto Bene event in Italy on September 12th and 13th.
Oilstainlab has teamed up with Delphi, an automotive parts and technology brand owned by PHINIA Inc., a company that supplies automotive components to vehicle manufacturers. Delphi primarily focuses on developing advanced ignition systems, fuel systems, diagnostics, engine management systems, and aftermarket replacement parts.
The Half-11 has already been driven more than 12,000 miles at various locations throughout the world. It has been raced across the United States from Los Angeles to New York City in about four days, including a stop at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in Aspen, Colorado. The hypercar even claimed an award at the prestigious Quail, A Motorsports Gathering.
“With the Half-11, we set out to build a myth, alive simultaneously in the past, present, and future,” said Nikita Bridan, the co-founder and CEO of Oilstainlab. “We wanted to build a myth that represents the past, present, and future.”
The Half-11 has been reimagined into a bespoke art car created in collaboration with Delphi. It features a stunning artwork design featuring an intentional neo-digital remix of the classic art cars of earlier generations. The purpose of the design is to pay homage to those who laid the foundation for automotive art, design, and motorsports to intersect.
“The Delphi Art Car is a celebration of global car culture and forward-thinking design,” said Neil Fryer, Global Vice President of Aftermarket at PHINIA. “It represents the collective experience we’ve gained in the aftermarket and its vital role in shaping future engineering breakthroughs.”
There is not much left for the Half-11 to accomplish other than returning to Europe and achieving the spiritual homecoming that the founders have in mind for it. The founders plan to drive the Half-11 across Europe’s most iconic automotive landscapes. The journey is not only meant to be a celebration of vintage motorsports, but a rigorous testing ground leading the Half-11 onto the path of inspiring Oilstainlab’s upcoming production vehicle: the HF-11.
HF-11: Oilstainlab’s First Production Car of 2027
Half-11 is the prototype car design of Oilstainlab’s planned first production car, HF-11, a design heavily inspired by 1960s European race cars. The prototype was constructed on a heavily modified 1966 Porsche 911 chassis with a V8 engine and 6-speed manual transmission.
The HF-11 is an ultra-lightweight vehicle of only 2,000 pounds. It is being engineered to deliver a raw, visceral, and unapologetic analog driving experience. The founders are pushing the Half-11 to its absolute limits during the European Tour because they want to collect the necessary emotional and mechanical data needed to ensure the HF-11 lives up to the company’s goal of letting the “past overtake the future.”
The HF-11 is powered by the company’s Thunder-Volt electric vehicle platform. It will become available in two forms: a race-ready vehicle with a 650-horsepower engine and 10,000 RPM, or an ultra-lightweight vehicle with a fully manual EV powertrain. Each one is expected to come with a $1.85 million price tag.
The Silicon Valley-based investment banking firm, Mavka Capital, serves as the financial advisor to Oilstainlab, allowing the company to complete the first closing round of its Series A financing. The funding represents more than an endorsement of Oilstainlab’s vision. It will provide the company with the financial resources needed to move beyond building its prototypes and start manufacturing the HF-11 production cars in time for delivery by 2027.
About Oilstainlab
Oilstainlab is a boutique hypercar vehicle manufacturer founded in 2018 by twin brothers Nikita and Iliya Bridan. The company is based in Signal Hill, an independent city fully enclosed within the borders of Long Beach, California, and specializes in designing and developing high-performance vehicles with innovative craftsmanship and technology.
Nikkita and Iliya were born in Ukraine and raised in Canada. Even though they were highly intelligent children, the twins dropped out of high school at age 14. They eventually went to a design school in Italy before finding their way to California as young men. Over the next 20 years, they built careers and work experience designing vehicles for major car manufacturing brands, such as Honda, Genesis, Toyota, and General Motors.
When the Bridan brothers decided to form Oilstainlab, they didn’t want to follow the traditional formula for building hypercars. Instead, they wanted to create hypercars that establish and preserve the emotional connection between drivers and their vehicles while embracing the innovation of future automotive technologies. That philosophy ultimately shaped every project the company has undertaken, particularly their Half-11 prototype.
What to Expect
The Half-11 has already generated over two billion media impressions across every major automotive and technology innovation publication that you can imagine. Oilstainlab is now poised to start the physical and dynamic testing phase of its revolutionary new HF-11 hypercar. If all the testing turns out well, the first consumer deliveries of the vehicle will be made in 2027.
Oilstainlab has positioned itself as more than a manufacturer of high-performance vehicles. It is one of the few automotive companies set out to preserve automotive culture during an era increasingly defined by automation, software, and digital mobility. The company is well on its way to achieving its objective.
