The car was designed by Giacomo Caliri and Giorgio Stirano, with input from Sergio Rinland, and was built at the team's base in Alessandria, Italy.

Rinland set up Astauto Ltd. in Tolworth, England, hiring several of his former collaborators from Brabham when the team closed its doors.

Brabham sold the building and wind tunnel at Chessington to Yamaha, facilities that Astauto rented to develop the new Fondmetal GR02, which was designed and built by June 1992, just six months after it was commissioned by Gabriele Rumi.

[8] The car's aerodynamics were completed by former Brabham employee Hans Fouche using wind-tunnels in South Africa, and composite work was done by the Belco Avia company.

It was angular and bulky, with poor aerodynamic performance negatively affecting grip and handling; it had a plump nose, initially no airbox, and was overweight and under-powered, using a small Ford-Cosworth ED V8 customer engine largely financed by Ford Brasil, which developed an estimated 100 bhp less than the most powerful engine in the field, the Renault V10 supplied to the Benetton and Williams teams.

The only attractive thing about the car was its blue and yellow colour scheme accompanied by fluorescent green wheel-rims, illustrating the team's Brazilian influence in its first year.