THESE ARE PRECIOUS MOMENTS AND THEY'RE GROWING rarer by the hour, day, week, month and year. I'm handed a key an actual key that must be inserted and twisted - to a car made by the Spartan Motor Company in Australia and imported, further developed and made road-legal by an outfit named Le Mans Coupes here in the UK. We know these guys well as they're also the people to go to for the fabulous Superformance range of GT40, Shelby Daytona Cobra and Corvette Grand Sport. Wonderful monsters all.
Anyway, the Spartan. That rarest of things. Anew car that's properly light, that takes great pride in its manual gearbox and, refreshingly, doesn't try to be all things to all people. Forget bandwidth. The Spartan weighs 700kg and has 460bhp. It's hair-on-fire lunacy on road or track and all the better for it. The link for Le Mans Coupes, a company built upon selling wonderfully realised recreations of '60s race cars, might not be obvious at first, but the Spartan's Can-Aminspired styling is key, as company founder Oliver Hulme explains: *My father Nigel, he raced a Lola T70 for many years. So we just loved the idea of this, really. It's a fantastic addition to what we do.'
It's a pretty compelling link, isn't it? But you don't need a history of wrestling T70s around Spa-Francorchamps to get the appeal of the Spartan: styling inspired by perhaps the coolest race series ever devised; lightweight tubular steel chassis with carbonfibre bodywork; double wishbones at each corner acting on TracTive semi-active dampers; mid-mounted Honda K24 2.4-litre in-line four with a Rotrex supercharger; six-speed manual 'box; AP Racing brakes; production limited to 300. I'm pretty much sold on this thing even before seeing it in the raw, unpainted carbonfibre.
Bu hikaye Evo UK dergisinin September 2023 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Giriş Yap
Bu hikaye Evo UK dergisinin September 2023 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
BEST BUYS BMW M CARS
THE PERFORMANCE CAR LANDSCAPE WOULD HAVE looked very different over the last five decades without BMW. Its M division, founded in 1972, has produced some of the best driver’s cars ever to hit the road, and in the process has provided a stream of benchmark models for its rivals to chase. In recent years, stricter emissions regulations, downsizing and electrification have seen some of those rival cars falter, yet by and large BMW’s M machines have remained strong. In fact, some rank among the greatest the department has made think of the eCoty-winning M2 CS and M5 CS while others are the only options worth recommending in their respective segments. Price tags have risen with performance, however, putting those latest offerings out of reach for many, but the marque’s popularity means there are numerous earlier M models available on the second-hand market for far more attainable figures. Here are four of our favourites.
TYRE 2024 TEST
Want to fit the very best tyres to your performance car? The annual evo Tyre Test identifies the cream of the current crop
HONDA ACCORD TYPE R
A liberal sprinkling of Honda Type R fairy dust on the late-'90s Accord produced an unlikely evo icon and a genuine performance bargain
TOY STORY
Where best to store some of Toyota’s most prized and valuable racing superstars? Under the wind tunnel at its Cologne HO, of course...
POWER PLAY
It develops 819bhp. It has no turbochargers, no hybrid assistance. Ferrari describes it as the most complete GT it's ever made. And it’s so proud of its mighty V12 engine it’s named the whole car after it. This is the 12 Cilindri
THE FIRST SAMURAIS
Japan has been responsible for many of our favourite driver's cars of recent decades, but their ancestors are often much less well known. We take a look at where the big manufacturers began their performance car journeys
DEFINITELY. NO MAYBE
Three Japanese performance icons - Lexus LFA, Subaru Impreza 22B and Nissan GT-R. Over three days on some of our favourite roads we explore what makes each uniquely thrilling, but also the car culture that unites them
1V3.0
F1, P1... and now W1. The next chapter in McLaren's Ultimate Series is the British firm's challenger to the forthcoming new Ferrari hypercar and a £2million, 1257bhp, hybrid-powered, technical tour de force
Thornley Kelham European RS
One man’s dream to build the perfect Porsche 911 has resulted inthis aaticMously restored and enhanced classic. We delve into the details and take it for a drive
Bentley Continental GT Speed
The new Continental GT is the most powerful Bentley ever, and the beginning of anew plug-in hybrid era for Crewe. But is it still a benchmark grand tourer?
