Modena, Italy—home to supercar makers including Ferrari, Maserati, and Pagani—recently welcomed its latest automotive brand. Last month, Ares Performance, a new tuning house founded by Dany Bahar (a former CEO of Lotus Cars) and a team of automotive industry experts, unveiled its first range of customized vehicles.

For this new venture, Bahar recruited talent from some of the automotive industry’s top marques, including the former Mercedes-Benz AMG COO Wolf Zimmermann and Lotus’s former lead designer, Mihai…