Ken Okuyama Kode89 2026: price, engine and specs so far

© Ken Okuyama Cars

The new Ken Okuyama Cars Kode89 has no announced power figure, engine displacement, price or exact production run yet. But its architecture is already revealed, and for a modern hypercar it looks far more unusual than a four-digit horsepower claim: the company’s own aluminum spaceframe chassis isn’t built around one specific engine, but around a range of V12s the customer will be able to choose from. The world premiere takes place on August 16 at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance.

The V12 sits longitudinally behind the cabin. Ken Okuyama Cars has confirmed a naturally aspirated engine and a manual gearbox — meaning the Kode89 deliberately steps away from hybrid systems, complex transmissions and any single powertrain the whole car is built around. The ability to adapt its own chassis to different 12-cylinder engines currently looks like the project’s main engineering distinction.

Ken Okuyama Cars describes the idea this way: “In an era exhausted by excessive spectacle and digitalization, this is an ultra-limited, made-to-order model where analog passion meets advanced technology. It is a true hypercar-carrozzeria, Made in Japan, that rewrites established assumptions.”

The Kode89 fits into a noticeable 2026 trend — expensive, low-volume cars returning to a mechanical connection with the driver. The Gordon Murray Le Mans GTR, for instance, pairs a naturally aspirated 4.0-liter Cosworth V12 producing 654 hp with a 6-speed manual, limited to 24 units. The Kode89 works on a different principle: the engine isn’t a fixed foundation of the project — the architecture itself allows the V12 to be chosen.

Another project close in philosophy is the Nilu27, with a naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12 producing over 1,070 hp and a 7-speed manual. There, by contrast, the new Hartley Engines V12 is the central piece of the whole car. That’s what makes the Kode89 interesting — not a fight for maximum output, but effectively a return to coachbuilder logic: the client gets a base architecture within which the powertrain can be personalized.

For Ken Okuyama Cars, this isn’t a decorative story. The company’s official site states it has been developing and hand-building road-going sports cars since 2007, with production based in Yamagata. The Kode89 marks the design studio’s 20th anniversary while also referencing the year 1989 — a period the project’s creators call one of the high points of automotive design.

What remains before the premiere is the most important part: which V12 will go into the debut car, its displacement and output, how many Kode89 units will be built, and what a commission will cost. Those four numbers will decide whether this unusual architecture stays a design manifesto or becomes a genuine alternative to the new wave of analog hypercars.