THE Wild ONES

FORGET ABOUT HYBRIDS, THIS IS THE TRUE HOLY TRINITY. WE GATHER THE THREE ICONIC ROAD-LEGAL LE MANS LEGENDS... AND DRIVE THEM

- HENRY CATCHPOLE

DOWN-CHANGE FOR the hell of it. Just to hear the V12. Because that dab provokes probably the best induction bark ever to emanate from a road car. There is almost a mirroring between the air rushing through the intake directly above your head, down to the engine behind you, and the tingles that start in your scalp and run down the length of your spine.

A glance right through the black arc that bisects the side window and there is the roof scoop of the wildest road car ever to be called a 911: the GT1. A glance left and there is the caricature face of the most expensive Mercedes road car ever made: the CLK GTR. I’m sitting in a McLaren F1 and yet I’m in the least rare car of our trio. By some margin. Not for the first time today, I find I can’t help but smile at the absurdity of what’s happening here.

These are three of the most exciting road cars ever made, two developed from Le Mans racers, one conceived to be the greatest road car ever, and which happened to win Le Mans. Outright! When James Cottingham from DK Engineering first asked me what the greatest trio of roadgoing sports cars could be, I instantly told him: these three. But actually, getting them together? All right, I knew they had the GTR, but still. And that they should all be in silver makes this even more surreal. Here we have the story of a golden era of endurance racing. The GT1 racers and the incredible road cars they spawned are something that even today, with the new LMH category, the FIA is striving to recreate.