Indice dei contenuti per June 2015 in Evo

PORSCHE’S MODEL offensive continues at an unrestrained pace, with the recent New York motor show the venue for the company’s latest sports car reveal. Yes, that’s another new sports car and not another SUV. The new Boxster Spyder follows hot on the heels of the Cayman GT4 (driven in evo 208), but while it emulates the Porsche Motorsportdeveloped coupe in spirit, it hasn’t been subjected to the same scrutiny by Porsche’s venerated racing department. To this end, it’s a series production car – something that has determined its ultimate specification. So, despite Porsche investing heavily in the GT4’s chassis by incorporating the front end of a 991 GT3 along with a bespoke rear suspension setup, the Spyder comes equipped with ‘Porsche Exclusive’ Sports suspension, which includes MacPherson struts, fixed-rate dampers…

Test location: Moreton-in-Marsh, gloucestershire GPS: 51.989488, -1.703210 Every new evo car that matters, rated. W Without Wishing to reduce the Range Rover sport SVR to a single figure, it’s worth knowing that it set a time of 8min 14sec around the nürburgring nordschleife. What odds you’d have been given a decade or two ago on a near 2.5-ton machine with a Land Rover badge on its prow ever recording a lap time around that place – let alone a stupendously quick one – we can only guess, but let’s take a moment to appreciate how impressive that actually is. And that’s only half the story. The SVR borrows the Jaguar F-type R’s 542bhp supercharged V8 engine. it’s the same unit found in the V8 supercharged version of the sport, but…

Test location: Grendon, northamptonshire GPS: 52.232802, -0.711734 T THE PROLIFERATION of tuners that offer upgrade kits for the Toyota GT86 and Subaru BRZ is a clear indication that, like us, many owners crave more power from the little coupe. The sweetly balanced, rear-wheel-drive chassis is the car’s centrepiece, but an increase over the standard 197bhp allows you to enjoy its capabilities more often. To that long list of tuners we can now add Cosworth. few outfits have a more vibrant heritage in motorsport and performance motoring, which gives this kit an appeal all of its own. alongside its high-profile motorsport programmes, which have included the building of formula 1 engines until the end of the 2013 season, Cosworth works behind the scenes on many OEM projects, giving this kit the…

Test location: Septmoncel, France GPS: 46.370479, 5.911219 T THE S65 COUPÉ is a different kind of AMG. Yes it has the monster engine and gargantuan quantities of power and torque we’ve come to expect from Affalterbach’s most famous exports, but this fabulous S-class combines with those a luxury, refinement and decorum that elevates it way beyond AMG’s more commonplace middlemanagement hot-rods. We’ll start with the numbers, for no other reason than they should tickle the Top Trumps fan in all of you. engine? A hand-built 6-litre twin-turbo V12 churning out 621bhp and 737lb ft. performance? 0-62mph in 4.1sec and a top speed (with the optional speed limiter raise) of 186mph. Weight? 2110kg. price? From £183,075. Gulp. On the outside the S65 Coupé is imposing if a bit chintzy, the frontal…

T THE CLOCKS HAVE SPRUNG FORWARD, the days are longer and the gritters have been packed away at long last, which means I’ve been getting itchy feet to start enjoying my cars again after what feels like a longer than usual winter. I used my 991 GT3 throughout the winter when I was in the UK – way more than I thought I would – which goes against all my principles of driving special cars in less than perfect conditions. But this latest GT3 is so useable every day it makes everything else redundant, and over the winter it became my default car. I don’t think there were many times when I stopped to think if I should take it; instinctively I just grabbed the keys. Even when I knew…

Direction: Clockwise Distance: 1.55 miles Location: Aberffraw, Anglesey, UK GPS: 53.18833, -4.49639 OUR ASSEMBLED SEPTET might fall under the broad umbrella of ‘coupes’, but with in-line four, flat-six, straightsix and V6 engines, frontand mid-mounted, employing turbos, superchargers or natural aspiration, not to mention front-, rear- and four-wheel drive controlled via manual, torque converter auto and automated sequential manual transmissions, the mechanics of this group is nothing if not diverse. The RCZ R’s turbo 1.6 is the smallest engine of the group (though it’s 29bhp up on the Alfa), but we shouldn’t under-estimate the 266bhp Peugeot’s ability. The first model to herald the firm’s revival of fortunes as a maker of desirable, capable drivers’ cars, this pretty coupe combines catwalk looks with the breathed-on innards of the Mini GP. As you’d…

‘Much of the wonderful atmosphere at Ferrari has been dynamited by commercialism’ TONIGHT PAUL WELLER plays the Albert Hall. Like me, Weller was born and bred in Woking. Don’t know what the Modster thought of growing up in the town, but I thought it was a pretty dire place. A complete lack of urban planning, hardly any nightlife, famous for having the first crematorium in the UK and the first purpose-built mosque. HG Wells’ Martians famously landed on Horsell Common in Woking: ‘Where the hell are we? Who’s got the map? I hope the rest of the planet’s better than this.’ Paul Weller and The Jam gave a whiff of muchneeded cool to Woking. In 1995 Weller released his third solo album, Stanley Road, named after the road he grew…

THE RANGIE SPORT is something of a conundrum, at least in the high-octane bubble that is the evo Fast Fl eet. Big, bulky 4x4s should be anathema to a magazine that lives by its ‘Thrill of Driving’ mantra, yet much as the editorial team might protest at the vulgarity of such behemoths, when it comes to a special weekend away or long motorway trip, it’s amazing how as individuals we’re more than prepared to sidle up to Mr Trott and ask to borrow his long-termer. Hypocritical? Abso-bloody-lutely! Especially when you’ve planned to take your father to north Wales and show him all the evo haunts, including the Triangle and the Groes Inn. Actually, I’ve always been open about my admiration for the ‘proper’ Range Rover, but the Sport has always…

I’M SURE THE chaps at tyres Northampton wondered what I knew. had the old Catchpole knees been portentous of something worsening in the heavens? Perhaps I had some predictive seaweed hung up on the porch at home. meteorologically it certainly must have seemed an odd decision to swap summer tyres for winters at the beginning of march. The reason for the change was that I was heading for the Alps via the Geneva motor show, and although the snow had been relatively tame in the mountains this year, it nonetheless seemed wise to be prepared. the otherwise excellent ContisportContact 5s had also picked up two unrepairable slow punctures, one in each of the rear tyres, so some new rubber was required anyway. Curiously, finding 205/40 r17 winter tyres was not…

I PERFORMED a few – ahem – ‘impromptu acceleration comparisons’ against an Audi S3 recently. Turns out that, with the throttles pinned from around 40mph, the Cupra and S3 are very evenly matched. The audi may have a 20bhp advantage (296bhp plays 276), but that is all but offset in power-to-weight terms by its near-100kg of extra mass. It’s only when accelerating away from a standstill that the Audi has a noticeable edge; its four-wheel-drive system – the source of that added weight – giving it a momentary advantage over the front-drive SEAT. excellent though the latter’s limitedslip diff is, you’ll still get wheelspin and a blinking traction light if you’re too heavy with your right foot. especially if a council gritter has just reduced the mu of an otherwise…

Q I’ve pencilled-in a European foray to the Nürburgring for a couple of years’ time (to coincide with my 40th birthday) and want a new car for the trip. My budget is £16,000 and it will be my first time driving the Ring. My heart is firmly set on a Mk2 Ford Focus RS. Is that a good call or should I consider something else? Jeff Gyekye A Considering that it will be your first time at the Ring, a sensible commentator might try to convince you that the Focus RS is a bit too quick. The reality of it is, though, that the front-drive Focus is probably quite a sensible choice. In terms of hot hatches, a used Renaultsport Mégane 265 should be well within budget, and although down…

IT WAS A sad day when Lee Noble parted ways with the company that bore this name. That was seven years ago, and much as we love the current M600 supercar, we really miss the likes of the M12 GTO-3R and M400. as with Lee himself, they may have been a bit rough around the edges, but they had real balls and real ability. Here were mid-engined British sports cars with the performance and handling to stand toe-to-toe with a Porsche GT3, and at a price that brought them within reach of ordinary mortals. The original M12 GTO appeared in 2000. adding twin Garrett T25 turbos to Ford’s 2.5-litre Duratec V6 gave 310bhp, which in a car weighing only a little over a ton meant a 0-60mph time of 4.1sec…

PIONEER DEH-X8700DAB £167.11 amazon.co.uk Don’t be fooled by the lack of buttons, Pioneer’s new DEH-X8700DAB head unit is crammed full of technology. Both USB and Bluetooth connectivity are present, enabling access to your smartphone’s functions through voice recognition. It works perfectly with iPhones, requiring users to simply ask Siri questions without touching a button or taking their eyes off the road. The unit’s party piece is its ‘mixtrax’ function, which mixes from one track to the next as a live DJ might. Also included are rewind and pause functions for DAB radio, while the fascia’s brightness and light colours can be adjusted to match most car interior lights. Sam Sheehan (@evoSamSheehan) PIAA HYPER PLUS BULBS £15.95 (pair) demon-tweeks.co.uk The promise of ‘brilliant white light’ on the box of these PIAA…

ULTIMA SPORTS HAS joined the 1000bhp club with the launch of its new Evolution model. Replacing the GTR and Can-Am, the Evolution is available in both coupe and convertible form and is fitted with a 6.8-litre supercharged Chevrolet LS V8 engine. In ultimate tune, the Evolution will deliver 1020bhp and 920lb ft of torque, which in a car weighing just 950kg equates to a power-to-weight ratio of 1091bhp per ton. The gearbox is a Porsche-sourced six-speed transaxle unit and the suspension employs unequal length double wishbones with adjustable coil springs and dampers. The brake discs measure 323mm all round, while 18in forged alloy wheels are 9in wide at the front and 13.5in at the rear. This is all connected to a spaceframe chassis dressed in a glassfibre body with a…

Test location: snetterton Circuit, Norfolk GPS: 52.463648 , 0.945805 T THERE’S A VERY real possibility that this summer the radical RXC Turbo 500 you see here will drive to the Nürburgring, complete a lap in under seven minutes and then drive home again. It’s also a pretty good bet that it’ll be faster than the Porsche 918 spyder. Faster than a McLaren P1 or LaFerrari? We don’t know, as neither company will release a time. Probably because they’re already not quite on the Porsche’s pace. (If they were surely we’d know, right?) so this car – fully type-approved, for sale in any EU country, crash-tested, emissions compliant – might just prove to be faster around a track than the highly celebrated new breed of hypercars. all for £143,400. That price…

Test location: odemira, Portugal GPS: 37.59468, -8.554916 F FOR A FEW years now, Mercedes has been offering both a standard and an ‘S’ version of its e63. It has carried the policy into the new AMG GT as well, and is now extending it to the C63. The choice poses something of a dilemma, not just in showrooms but also on launches, where frequently time is tight and you might only have the chance to drive one variant. Two scoops or three? Medium or large glass? Normal or S? The temptation is usually too much. But as we know, less can sometimes be more, so it’s a relief that after an afternoon in the C63 S (see issue 208 for the review) I also get the chance to spend an…

B BARELY A DAY GOES BY WITHOUT THE Nürburgring Nordschleife making some kind of headline. Last month it made the news for the worst possible reasons, when a car racing in the hotly contested VLN series left the circuit at high speed and vaulted the crash fencing, killing a spectator. That the driver – Jann Mardenborough – emerged physically unhurt (but emotionally shattered) was a minor miracle. As is always the case in the wake of such tragedies, questions are rightly asked. And, in this age of social media, an awful lot of bollocks is uttered online by trolls, bedroom aerodynamicists, barroom N24 veterans and, worst of the lot, Taki Inoue. Ignore the rubbish. The truth is this crash feels like something those close to the VLN and N24 have…

Letter of the Month The thrill of starting Reading Nick Trott’s latest Fast Fleet report on his 1980s Porsche 911 SC (evo 208) put an instant smile on my face. Whilst it’s not quite in the same league as the Porsche, I own an elderly, albeit fast Mk2 Mazda MX-5. I, too, enjoy the quirks of many small issues that modern car drivers don’t get to experience. I find I have to carry kitchen roll with me at all times to catch rain leaks from the door seals. In winter I sometimes have to scrape ice from the inside of my windscreen. And I pray each morning as I turn the key, but then get instant joy as the throaty engine roars into life. They certainly keep you on your…

FROM CATERHAMS TO Carrera Cup, Mini Challenge to Maserati Trofeo, one-make racing is the backbone of modern motorsport. Identical machinery, big grids and drivers hungry for success are a sure-fire recipe for exciting racing and the perfect showcase for the brightest talent. It’s also marketing gold for manufacturers, as there’s no chance of losing to a rival brand. This year Audi Sport enters the one-make fray with the TT Cup. As support race for the DTM, the TT Cup is highly appealing because it places young racers in the bosom of the Audi Sport family and puts them in front of some of motor racing’s biggest hitters. With a dozen races across six race weekends there’s plenty of seat time for the drivers, and with all the cars maintained and…

TORQUE VECTORING, TORQUE-FILL, HYBRID FOUR-WHEEL drive systems, e-diffs, variable-vane turbochargers, brake-steer, stability control, dynamic steering… These are the technologies that manufacturers tell us we need and we lap it up. We’re told they make a car more instantaneous in its responses, more intuitive, more fun. And very often reviews regurgitate the press material, pretend that the benefits of these systems are obvious and tangible (often they’re not) and we’re all content that the performance car’s evolution is right on track. Hurrah! It takes all of about 30 seconds in a Caterham Seven to realise that for response, accuracy, immersion and just sheer joyous fun you need precisely none of these things. The Seven couldn’t be simpler and relies on nothing but the driver’s skill. It can, of course, make you…

WHEN FERRARI LAUNCHED THE 456 GT, or ‘F116’ if you prefer model type references, in 1992, the motoring press went into retrospective overdrive. Front covers and doubledigit page counts where afforded to this new V12 supercar. Naturally there were also comparisons; some went with Aston’s supercharged Volante Vantage, others looked back and hailed the return of the front-engine V12 Ferrari by dusting off a Daytona and heading for a rendezvous with the hottest new Italian. The only discrepancy was that Ferrari hadn’t actually stopped making a front-engined V12 coupe after the Daytona went out of production in 1973. The ensuing 365 GT4 2+2’s two-door body may not have been as pretty as that of the car it replaced (although both were styled by Pininfarina’s Leonardo Fioravanti) but beneath its long…

IT’S BEEN A DISJOINTED few weeks for the Mégane and me, with back-to-back trips to mainland Europe forcing me to leave it at home, or languishing forlornly at the airport, parked incongruously amongst the ranks of grey German saloons and SUVs. Each time I’ve been away to try something special: Switzerland in an S65 AMG Coupe for the Geneva motor show and flights to Portugal and Spain for the launch of the Cayman GT4 and a track test of Audi’s new TT Cup race car. Five months into my custodianship of the Mégane I feel I really know it well, so such trips are a neat way of seeing an old friend through fresh eyes. The luxury of a near-£200k coupe might have shown up the Mégane’s lack of comfort,…

THE F40 RECENTLY left its storage cocoon after a long five months of slumber. Its time in the sunlight was brief, as it quickly disappeared into a carrs Ferrari transporter to be chauffeured off for its annual service. I don’t imagine it was particularly pleased by this miniature trip under its own power; the F40 has always run at its best when it has had regular usage. With me currently living in the States, but US import rules meaning the F40 is stuck in the UK, its service schedule is presently completely time-, not mileagebased. That said, for the last several years February has seen it head down to the south-west for its annual check-up and fettling. regardless of where the F40 has been living, the timing on the service…

I RECENTLY HAD the chance to drive our Seat leon cupra 280 long-termer for a couple of days, while shooting the class-of-2015 hot hatch test in south Wales (evo 207), and I soon found myself enjoying having the extra power under my right foot. In fact I thought getting back into the Kia afterwards would be awful. I was wrong. For me, there is one key facet missing from our Seat, and that’s a manual gearbox. I can think of no better connection between man and machine than shifting up and down a car’s gearbox yourself, with a lever and a clutch pedal. I love the feeling when all of the motions needed to drive a manual car well combine into one fluent act, making you feel like a driving…

BACK IN 2002 my 911 SC underwent a pretty thorough restoration, and fortunately I still have the pictures and paperwork documenting the process. The car was a mess prerestoration – indeed I wince when I look at some of the images – but when I study the car today I’m impressed that the work undertaken has stood the test of time. From the pics and the paperwork, it’s clear that PAB 169Y suffered from ‘Alien rust’, in that it was exploding from the inside out… This type of rust is fairly common with old 911s – if you can see some rust on the outside it’s likely to be ten times worse on the inside. As you can see from the photos, my car had some drastic rot in some…

Start point: 43.291576, 5.648775, Pont Des Tompines, Gémenos, France The roads: D2 Perfect for: Porsche 911 GT3 HIS ALL-CONSUMING adoration of popstrel Taylor Swift might be hard to tolerate on longer journeys, but evo photographer Dean Smith must take full credit for finding this gem of a road. Numerous new car launches have been based at the stripy Paul Ricard circuit in southern France over the years, and the roads leading to it are great in their own right, but nestled in the hills only miles to the west is something even better. The D2 is so good that we’ve used it twice for big evo cover stories: Veyron versus Huayra (issue 185) and more recently McLaren F1 versus P1 (205). You’re looking for the D2 just east of the…

Skoda ha s confirmed that its Fabia R5 rally car ha s successfully received official FIA homologation status. Replacing the outstanding Fabia Super 2000, the R5 is now eligible to compete on international rallies against the likes of V W’s Polo R WRC and Ford’s Fiesta RS WRC. Powered by a turbocharged 1.6 -litre four-pot engine, the four-wheel- drive Fabia R5 produces close to 300bhp, which is sent through a five-speed sequential gearbox. The car weighs ‘at lea ST’ 1230k g , in accordance with FIA rules. The R5 Fabia also receives a WRC-style makeover, gaining bulging wheelarches and tauter proportions. Unsurprisingly, it ha s generated lots of interest from customer teams, though there’s no word a s to when it’ll make its competition debut. The R5’s predecessor enjoyed great…

Test location: Podington, bedfordshire GPS: 52.251346, -0.641268 S SO MUCH ABOUT the Lamborghini Huracán LP610-4 is simple. It looks amazing and absurd in the best supercar tradition, the sounds it makes trigger something in you at a primeval level, the performance is breathtaking and it has composure, stability and pace to make your eyeballs bleed. In so many ways it appears to be the Perfect Supercar. and yet it’s a car that splits opinion, a car that can feel every bit the supercar perfected on one journey and then mildly frustrating the next. It is magnificently raw yet completely useable, wildly exciting yet utterly impregnable. I love it. I think. Especially now I’ve tried one without the variable ratio Dynamic Steering. Yep the dreaded bS, er, I mean DS, hasn’t…

Test location: Circuito Tazio Nuvolari, Italy GPS: 45.071799, 8.993654 F FROM BEHIND The pit wall, with my head poking through a gap in the tall catch fence, I can see the Romeo Ferraris race Cinquone exiting the final corner and spilling onto the long straight. It fills the pits with an unbearable buzz-saw howl as it approaches my position, then on the upshift to sixth gear fires out a violent gunshot that makes me jump. I catch the jelly mould silhouette of a Fiat 500, but the furious sound and outrageous wing don’t fit. The difference between a racing car on the other side of a fence and a demented beast charging around its zoo enclosure has never seemed so small. Motorsport has always been at the very heart of…

U UNTIL RECENTLY A FRIEND OF MINE owned a 1970s Aston Martin V8 coupe, a car so stoutly and completely British that you felt it was made of cricket bats, damp soil and beef dripping. I coveted it in a way that was almost painful, not just because it looked terrific and drove away on a wave of velvety V8 thunder leaving you swaddled in a warm duvet of potent petrol fumes. That was all very nice, of course. But I also lusted after this car because of the very idea of owning an Aston Martin. ‘What am I driving at the moment? Oh, um, Aston Martin…’ ‘Which is my car, officer? Why, it’s the Aston Martin…’ ‘Hey, here’s an idea, let’s go away for the weekend. We can take…

FOR A ROAD THAT promises so much, the Llanberis Pass is a tricky one to have a proper drive along. It climbs halfway up Mount Snowdon and plummets back down the other side, which must make it the single most dramatic stretch of tarmac in all of Wales. Nothing comes for free, though, and as a consequence of it running right across Snowdon, the Llanberis Pass is busy. It’s never more than a luminous Gore-Tex coat and a pair of waterproof trousers short of a branch of Millets, but at its worst the road is suffocated to a crawl by cars, buses and bicycles. It’s also treacherous. Snowdon and the surrounding peaks act as an enormous geological funnel, collecting the vast quantities of rainwater that fall on Snowdonia and channelling…

AUDI’S EVOLUTIONARY APPROACH to its endurance racing cars continues with the latest iteration of the R18 e-tron quattro. Rather than opting for something altogether new, the company has instead chosen to focus on the shortcomings of last year’s winner at the Circuit de la Sarthe. Aero was clearly the buzzword at Audi Sport when it set about planning its hopes for endurance racing in 2015. From front to back, the R18 features significantly revised bodywork, all of it designed to reduce drag without compromising downforce. The most obvious changes relate to the front end, which now has large vents above the front wheels. These are intended to not only increase brake cooling, but also to manage ‘dirty’ air generated by the rotating wheels. The front wing has also been altered…

‘One of the tragedies of the new classic-car boom is that this culture is strangled’ ‘IT DOESN’T GET MUCH MORE SURREAL than this,’ I ponder, with another bite of Subway’s finest steak & cheese. The sky is cloudless and the sun blinding, but we’re at 6000 feet so there’s a wicked chill in the air. Photographer Aston Parrott is shooting merrily away and wondering why all jobs aren’t on a road like this with cars like these. And beside me are Magnus Walker (tuna) and Alex Ross, co-founder of Porsche tuner Sharkwerks (also tuna, fittingly enough). We’re talking crap, the way strangely obsessive car people do when they’re together. Should Magnus get a 996 GT2? ‘Yes, do it,’ is the unanimous reply. Is the 991 a proper 911? This one…

EACH MONTH, evo’s esteemed production editor, Ian eveleigh – the linchpin to you receiving your magazine and app updates on a regular basis – emails the Fast Fleeters with deadlines and word counts for these very reports. He’s a considerate chap, is our ev. The brief arrives around halfway through the preceding month – just long enough for us to have been here and there in our Fast Fleet steeds since filing copy for the last update, but with still enough time before the impending deadline to undertake a specific task or embark on a favourite journey to report back on. he even factors in time for photographers Dean Smith and Aston Parrott to shoot any particular areas we are considering scrutinising, or to come along on a journey to…

THE VW GROUP’S MQB platform is much like the food from my local Pizza GoGo. the basic platform stays the same throughout the various ranges, but the end product can be completely and utterly ruined by its toppings. For example, putting fish on a pizza is the equivalent of placing a rattly four-cylinder diesel in a convertible ‘sports’ car – both are terrifyingly disgusting, yet some customers order them and so the manufacturer has to offer them. Both ‘my’ VRS and production editor Ian eveleigh’s seAt Leon Cupra 280 use the MQB platform, so we swapped cars for a few nights to see if the extra 15mm in the VRS’s wheelbase, an additional 59bhp for the SEAT, and a few other differences can be felt in the driving dynamics. The…

SHOTBLASTING A CAR is an unnerving proposition. After removing everything, I didn’t think my 02’s shell looked too bad, with only a few small areas of rot. But of course the paint could still have been hiding all manner of sins and sandblasting might reveal that, instead of being made from steel, it was actually a Blue Peter project made out of lollypop sticks, papiermâché and sticky-back plastic. So, we sent the shell off to be blasted, with it mounted on a fully rotating, fully manoeuvrable spit made expertly from two engine stands by my dad at a fraction of the cost of the weedy, castor-less restoration spits on eBay. He also knocked up a dolly for it to sit on once the underside had been done. The original plan…

Knowledge Insights into the used car market in association with CLASSIC& PERFORMANCE CAR THE WORLD’S GREATEST CARS FOR SALE... WITH THE VOLKSWAGEN Golf R currently sitting proud as king of the hot hatches, we thought a look back at previous R-badged Golfs could throw up some interesting prospects. While the Mk6 R and Mk5 R32 have their places in history and the original Mk2 Rallye is already well on its way to collector status, it’s the original R32, the Mk4, that has the most potential right now. You might, however, look at the performance figures for this 237bhp hatch and wonder what all the fuss is about. Well, it’s all about context. When the R32 arrived in 2003, we had been denied a decent performance Golf for some time. The…

THERE ARE A number of peculiar offerings at Brightwells’ upcoming auction in Leominster on May 13, from a (surprisingly) smart-looking year-2000 Daewoo Musiro concept to a rocket motor for a Soviet-era surface-to-air missile. There are some interesting performance car curios to take note of, too… First up is the Dare DZ (pictured top). It may not be a name you remember, but plunder your stash of ’90s car mags and you’ll discover that the Dare is in fact something a bit special. The brainchild of the Walklett family – famed for building Ginettas until the company was sold in 1989 – the DZ used many parts from Ford, including a mid-mounted 130bhp 2-litre Zetec engine. Just ten were produced, and this was the first – it even appeared at the…

Camera: Nikon D3. Focal length: 70mm. Exposure: 1/50sec at f/7.1 (ISO 200). Lens: 24-70mm at f/2.8 THE SCENE IS MARANELLO, IT’S THE MID-NINETIES. Ferrari is introducing its most potent supercar to date as 49-yearold test driver Dario Benuzzi explains to journalists that this swooping, cab-forward demon is closer to a single-seater than any road-ready car ever to bear Scuderia shields. F1 triple-champ Niki Lauda is on hand to eagerly declare that even the sacrosanct F40 doesn’t stand comparison when the two are driven around the Fiorano test track. Fast-forward two decades and if it’s possible to pity a performance car, the Ferrari F50 is probably it. Quicker than its forebear and purer than an Enzo, it’s a wonder how the exceptional machine that bridged those untouchables is quietly smeared because…