VOLUME SELLER

The diminutive NSU 1000TTS is a forgotten sporting gem that is entertaining to drive and still turns heads - but it's not exactly stealthy

- RICHARD HESELTINE

Well, this is a turn up: a tunnel. The car is detonating sound. like buckshot. You W swear you can hear every firing stroke, but then so can the poor office workers who are decamping to see what is causing the commotion. Oh, and it's getting a bit smoky in here, and this black vinyl is hotter than the sun. Our NSU 1000TTS wants to bolt, initial hesitation leading to a pronounced lunge with only a few millimetres of throttle travel. This is an angry buzzbomb when prodded. Just one more run, the snapper suggests, you know, to go with the last half a dozen 'one last runs'. Sorry everyone, please don't judge.

Out come the phones to record the moment, each onlooker seemingly astounded that something so small can make so much noise. That and perhaps marvelling at the driver who appears to have taken a turn for the salmon pink and sprung a leak. Yeah, sure, heaven forbid we should have the windows down for the photography. That would be awful. Just 10 minutes in and it's as though you have been mainlining espresso. We're buzzing, but so far we haven't left the environs of an industrial estate somewhere in Lisbon, Portugal, its exact whereabouts, we are afraid, top secret (except to those who work nearby, obviously).

What is telling is that on our arrival this car is the one nearest the door. It belongs to a candidate for 'world's nicest man', Manuel Ferrão, a publishing magnate whose collecting instincts stretch to the obligatory Ferraris, Astons, Maseratis and the like. He also has a Cobra 427, a Ford GT40, assorted Lotus and Lola sports-racers, Group B rally cars (with works warpaint and without) and lots and lots of Abarths. The point is that this isn't a car you would associate with someone whose cache is dripping with exotica, but, as he is quick to point out, it's fun. Think of the NSU as a German Abarth - a car whose praises are rarely sung outside its homeland, but which deserve to be.