“Koenigsegg,
Pagani
and Spyker. What
wouldn’t you give to
get behind the wheel
of one of these
magnificent machines?
But to have first-hand
experience of all three
as they were designed
to be driven…
Well,
that’s the stuff of
dreams. MotorBar’s
guest writer John Steel
proves that even
über-exotic dreams
can become a reality...”
SAYING 'YES' TO FOOLISH IDEAS bandied around in pubs is a
personal failing. The first time was to go parachuting — despite the
fact that I had never even been in an aeroplane. It was a throwaway 'over
the shoulder' response, given without thought as my conversation involved
something of promise if I played
my cards right.
The result was climbing out onto the wing of a De Haviland Rapide bi-plane
and plunging into the void above Thruxton's airfield circuit.
This time it was easier still: "Fancy going to Scotland for the weekend and
being driven in some of the most exotic cars imaginable?"
Come on, where's the catch? Apparently there wasn't one. By pure chance the
gods were smiling on me — it was an opportunity made in Heaven. And one
that, in this particular case, is only available to those who belong to the
exclusive Rio Performance Members Club. It is something that money alone just
can't buy. The deal was that on the Saturday I would tag along behind a supercar
rally through world class scenery — okay, so I was going to be in the
VW people carrier support car — and maybe get a ride or two on Sunday
at a disused USAF air-field. And with luck, perhaps I'd even be able to drive
something inter-esting. Given it was very short notice — luckily for
me all of MotorBar's motoring writers were already spoken for — and that
some long-evaded house painting was my weekend's alternative entertainment,
how could I refuse?
So that is how I landed up feeling rather lacking in confidence, walking along
to the very best of motor displays outside the new Dakota Hotel near Edinburgh
early on the Saturday morning. We were all called in for the drivers' briefing
and everyone else seemed busy, relaxed and so obviously much better drivers
than yours truly.
A near-cube of a building with a shiny black exterior finish, Edinburgh's
Dakota Hotel is brand spanking new — and most definitely not your average
hotel. David Coulthard is an investor and the interior design was as sharp
as his consistently quick Grands Prix starts in his early F1 years.
A hugely enjoyable period of modest saloon car racing gave me very differing
opinions of motoring events. 'Brands Hatch-style' was petty officials getting
their kicks by scoring points over competitors and
at the other extreme was the totally different approach at places such as
Thruxton and Oulton Park where problems were shared and help gladly offered
— even to the humblest of competitors like me!
The Rio Prestige fleet I was shortly to encounter was a multi-million pound
investment in 15 supercars by one man — entrepreneur Bill Gray. I could
not conceive that he would be relaxed about anything, so assumed the organisation
was surely going to be towards the Brands Hatch-style. Little did I know of
Bill then. The cars were either brand new or in 'as new' condition —
an accident between the most expen-sive cars could be surpassed only by two
747s colliding.
However, the brief was conducted in a very friendly fashion: Yes, safety was
paramount and consideration for others up there too; but
it was for personal enjoyment that we were all present in the same meeting
room. Great stuff.
Quite a surprise, really. There was neither a Marbella gold medallion nor
a Hooray Henry in sight — just a group of chaps (and their partners)
who had a passion for driving the best cars. Part of the 'work hard, play
hard' brigade. I later discovered that there was a mix of occup-ations including
IT, banking, insurance, commerce and even a medic. As they had obviously worked
hard for their money, they would surely complain if they didn't get value
for it.
The first leg of the rally was, as predicted, a bit of a struggle to shake
loose the traffic and leave the towns behind as we powered north, with three
groups of five cars meeting up in a lay-by once we'd cleared the clutter of
urban roads.
A shuffle for everyone to change cars and — Hey, presto! — would
I like to join Jonathon in the Lamborghini Gallardo Spider for the next leg?
Any
cobwebs left after a 04:00 AM start were banished in an instant as we exploded
up the road. Whilst the G-forces played havoc with my senses, I became aware
that the wheels weren't spinning but surely the tarmac was literally being
torn up as I couldn't imagine that anything could be propelled by such force.
All sensations were heightened but numbed at the same time. The noise with
the hood down was so shattering that one could not carry out any dialogue
— nor even think straight to start with. The four-wheel drive had such
competent grip as to seem unreal — every corner was an accident waiting
to happen in normal cars, but no sweat at all in the Lamborghini. Acceleration
straight out of Boy's Own.
Happily Jonathon, a self-confessed petrol-head, proved to be highly accomplished
and gave me no qualms whatsoever. Our progress was meteoric.
Habitually a bad passenger, I was quite relaxed about our attempts to orbit
the world before lunch. Jonathan proved an interesting com-panion and conversation
flowed easily — but when we were chatting, he would tend to ease off
the throttle marginally. We could talk later
— so I quickly shut up! After that, I could have gone home happy that
I'd had a great experience — the Lamborghini had proved to be the best
of any 'supercars' I had previously come across.
Thanking Jonathan and Gavin — our very helpful PR — for the exper-ience,
I wondered how I was going to top it. The wait was short. Would I like to
accompany Christian von Koenigsegg — the founder of Koenigsegg —
in the 240mph Koenigsegg CC8S? Would I heck!
This weekend was proving difficult: my mind had already run out of superlatives
for this article and unuttered expletives as we took off! None of this was
the laid back yawns of the motoring journalists who had done it all before.
This was the real thing with intensely mind-blowing thrills.
These cars go like nothing on earth, which is why I will allow myself to exaggerate
— just a little — and say that after my ride in the Koenigsegg,
only space travel could possibly surpass the sensations. Although I will
settle for a EuroFighter Typhoon as being the next step.
Trying
desperately hard to clamber into the cockpit over the impossibly wide sills
— a feature on all these cars — was tricky. By the end of the weekend,
there was scuffing on all of them, but none was due to me.
I was keenly aware of my fragile presence on the rally. I need not have worried
about being driven by such a successful tycoon. None of your young tycoon's
petulance. Christian von Koenigsegg was charismatic and charming to the point
that surely more than one person has bought a Koenigsegg purely on the basis
of his friendship.
Christian has a rapidly expanding family — each Koenigsegg is one of
his offspring, and he is proud and
very caring of every single one of them. We were travelling in number
5 out of the first batch of five and it had taken 40,000 hours to build —
that's the same time it takes to build a large yacht. It would hurt him if
someone damaged his creation, and he certainly was not going to be the culprit.
As the founder and originator of these eponymous cars, he had an exceptional
understanding of its potential and limitations — not that I could detect
any let-up in his style and pace, which prompted my thought that I had to
accept that the Lamborghini Gallardo was by comparison relatively slow (which
it is not by any means). But I would hastily add, only in the context of these
über-exotics, as MotorBar has christened them. Bill, the founder of
the RPM Club, had also recognised that the 'supercar' tag was inadequate,
using the term 'hypercar' instead. For myself, even that is inadequate to
aptly describe the breadth of their blistering performance. Whilst I offer
no adequate alternative, I would call them 'Extreme' cars as they bear no
resem-blance to anything standard.
A number of high points about the Koenigsegg drive — mentioned in MotorBar's
introductory news item about the Rio Road Rally — are worth repeating
and are included in 'The Experience' section of the side panel to the right.
There were many such moments. I had been along the route many years ago and
had always held fond memories of the beautiful scenery. Frankly, that was
largely unseen this time around as it became swamped by the sensations of
travelling in one of the world's greatest cars.
Unquestionably, the Lamborghini had given a highly competent ride. The only
non-motoring comparisons I could think of were to a Stradivarius violin or
a top racehorse: extremely taut (literally highly-strung), extremely precise
with the engine noise very pure but not the voice of an angel — more
the roar of the crowd at a World Cup win.
The Koenigsegg was very different. Certainly not relaxed; but exuding such
power in depth that it would treat any lesser car as merely a pest settling
on its flanks, before disappearing showing utter contempt.
The last comparison would indicate that there was competition running through
the fleet. Not so. The cars complemented one another
and were, surprisingly, all very different in character. A good mix and, thankfully,
the 'Dumball' Rally fever was totally absent. The cars travelled exceedingly
quickly and sometimes close to, but never racing — just adding an extra
ingredient to an already great recipe for
driving enjoyment.
Christian had an enormous empathy with his car and really extracted every
last drop of performance from it. As owner, CEO, ambassador and creator of
the Koenigsegg brand, he has a lot of diversions from driving. But I would
not put money on Top Gear's Stig to beat him at Dunsfold — and I most
certainly would back Christian on the open road!
Our rate of progress even made all thought processes go into over-drive. A
shorthand was needed, perhaps — only using the first half of each word
so you could keep up!
The pleasure of running in close company with the 'tweaked' Pagani ahead,
and both cars being driven by highly-accomplished drivers, was so entrancing
that the beautiful glens, rivers, moors and forests were
a blur in fast forward format that failed to detract from the stars of
the show — the cars themselves.
There was also the music of the exhausts that stirred the soul more than even
the last night of the Proms. The Koenigsegg's engine has
the range of an entire orchestra; the lazy beat of a drum when at near-rest,
rising to a whole series of crescendos as Christian moved up through the gears.
The real fireworks were lit from third gear on, when the power available was
still capable of stripping the road surface off its tarred base.
The most apt destination for lunch was, of course, the front lawn of Balmoral
Castle, where a picnic was enjoyed by all. The visiting public forgot the
rather severe cold stone of this Victorian castle that they had come to see
and a couple of blue rinses seemed transfixed by the Pagani; obviously wondering
where the little green men from Mars had gone...
The
driving legend of our host Bill Gray can be summed up by the fact that the
general consensus of opinion of those who know him was that pensions would
not be on the minds of, or need to be applied to, his passengers! And Yes,
I won the jackpot again! There was a spare berth in the Bill-driven Pagani
Zonda C12S. A motto of the Roman gladiators was 'Ad Deum Tendo' —
'Hold for the Day'. Which is, to me:
Go For It. So no worries here with 'Wild' Bill then.
Straight into the groove after lunch,
in this LHD 'grounded' jet fighter of a car. A bit more involvement with the
Pagani for me as I could call the overtaking shots for Bill, although it was
hardly necessary as overtaking was a momentary jig out and back in the blink
of an eye. These extreme cars can also be frustratingly slow — with frequent
and long visits to petrol stations. However, this time the stop was uplifted
by its location: a stunning glen in a side road with a view across the river
to the road on which we would next run. The backdrop was a wooded mountainside.
A scene that could be appreciated everywhere in the area but for us it was
our grandstand seat to see and, more dramatically, hear the whole fleet
pass up the road in a spirited manner. It made the hairs on the back of my
neck tingle.
I spent the whole of the afternoon in the Pagani and was regaled by Bill with
a stimulating conversation to complement the highly-enter-taining drive. One
could get used to this style of life. Bill is a 'finance man', but you couldn't
get further away from the John Cleese account-ant's image so adroitly described;
Bill is a colourful, larger-than-life character and as such would complement
John Cleese himself!
We arrived at St Andrews where the cars were lined up in front of the hotel
and, as usual, they stole the show.
Tired but elated — What a day! The only mishap was a ding'd wheel which
slightly affected the tracking on the Lamborghini. No problem
for me — selfishly, that was crossed off already from my list of four
cars to experience. As, too, were the Pagani and the Koenigsegg. Great going!
The only car that had eluded me was the slightly quirky-styled Spyker. But
there was always tomorrow to look forward to.
The RPM Club members went to Glamis Castle — the childhood home
of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother — for a Black Tie dinner.
I needed a rest after the early start with easyJet to Edinburgh and
I was determined to be daisy fresh, anticipating the following day's airfield
experience.
On the Sunday morning I arrived at the disused airfield at Edzell well before
the rally as I wanted to familiarise myself with the runway and work out how
I could make up for my driving limitations by guile.
A bad start as my Vauxhall hire car could only just make 100mph on the near
mile-long runway in the slightly downhill direction. Not a propitious start…
Together with the security man, I laid out cones at the intersection of the
runways in case any stray vehicle wandered across.
The cars arrived and the focus of attention turned to the Koenigsegg: Christian
had to leave early so he quickly got stuck in, taking passen-gers on demonstration
runs before letting them drive. The general pattern was what seemed a leisurely
start — but it actually only appeared so compared with the performance
from third gear on. The locals must have thought the jets had returned as
the savage noise, time-warp acceleration and terminal speed were literally
staggering; the Koenigsegg generating a mirage-like haze as it rapidly shrunk
and disappeared into the distance.
On Christian's runs he sprinted up the runway and returned, giving his passengers
a slalom experience winding up the sideways G-forces, finishing with a foot-on-the-floor
brake test. Not only did the Koenigsegg stop in an instant; Christian took
both hands off the wheel to demonstrate a stable and straight halt.
Unfortunately
the special oil refill
for the Koenigsegg was not available in the backwoods of Scotland on a Sunday
so the focus moved to the Pagani — although my attention initially turned
to the Spyker as I was taken for an invigorating drive on the public roads
by Ed, the Rio General Manager. Again, highly skilled and, much to my benefit,
because the Spyker is his favourite car in the Rio fleet.
After negotiating the usual awkward and inelegant scramble into the cockpit,
I was presented with a totally different cabin 'theatre' compared to the other
marques.
The word theatre is an entirely appropriate choice as it expresses the visual
drama created. The Koenigsegg theatre was typically Swedish: beautifully simple
and clear in its layout and instrumentation. Being Italian, the Pagani follows
the national 'lively' style with a much more extrovert design.
The style of the Spyker represented a totally different approach. Whether
it was a Dutch style or not, I do not know. But again theatre, and a very
confident style it is. The first impression was that it was retro in an Art
Deco way. I hate kitsch, pastiche and Disney-style; preferring today's —
or even better — tomorrow's style. But this was no reproduction of the
past and it worked brilliantly — milled aluminium dashboard, chrome/alloy
toggle switches and cream faces to the numerous dials. A real character of
a work station.
The feel of the car again was different, but not lacking in any quarter. One
felt that there was a heritage of the traditional British sports car plus
the directness of a Lotus in there somewhere. However, this was as modern
as you wanted and felt very connected to all the senses.
Cannoning down the road, thinking that if ever I got this opportunity again
ear plugs would be top of the needs list, I lapped up the exper-ience and
(S)miles! I got quite comfortable with our rapid progress until Ed demonstrated
the Spyker's stability by yanking the wheel to one side then the other. What
a wake up call — in a normal car we would have emulated (or even emasculated!)
a stag, jumped the hedges and gone ploughing without any doubt.
Back at the airfield, the 'max-ed' test drives were still being enjoyed. The
first stalled start raised a cheer and my stomach churned as other people
went well ahead of me for a turn in the driving seat. I waited until last
for a drive in the Pagani. Bill announced to everyone that
he would give anyone a 'Really Wild' drive as the finale after my run. There
were no takers.
One very experienced driver accompanied by one of the Rio team had 'a moment'
under braking at the far end of the runway: the 'lock-up' was marked by plumes
of tyre smoke seen from afar and there were two rather flushed faces on the
car's return.
Once at the wheel of the Pagani, Bill pointed out that 3,000 to 5,000 revs
in the first two gears was the danger zone; after that effectively it was
all mine. He also mentioned that one can start off with no throttle at all
and that we would run past the 'end' cones.
My approach from the start was to avoid embarrassing myself and to keep the
door open in case the jackpot ever comes up again. I was also very mindful
that the Pagani leaves everything to the driver to sort out — no ABS,
no 4WD, etc.
Quite a surprise: a clean start as I found the clutch was not too sharp and
I could read its feel quite clearly. Up through the gears; those movements
of both the stick and the intervals were very short and I was naturally worried
about the consequences of going down the 'box by mistake. However, my big
mistake was mis-identifying the cones. When I laid out 'my' cones, I assumed
the full runway would be used, but it had then been decided that stratospheric
speeds were not be to be the order of the day and so more cones were placed
alongside the runway to indicate the finish line for the shorter run. Assuming
I had reached the end I eased-off, thinking it was all over, and then had
to get back on the throttle. The response was rapid but the ultimate speed
spoilt. The main objective had been achieved, but I had failed
to take full advantage of the potential.
Still no takers for Bill's 'Wild Run' so I jumped at the chance of swap-ping
seats again. This time the Pagani was made to sing for its supper and it came
up trumps. Quite what top speed was achieved is immat-erial as the sensations
were fully indulged — we slowed to 'parking speed' and Bill then performed
a celebratory 380-degree power spin. The 'parking speed' turned out to be
80mph, so what speed we were travelling earlier can only be described as awesome.
A dramatic finish to a weekend that will be engraved in my memory until I
draw my last breath. For the record, never once did I have any reason to believe
it would be my last breath on the Rio Rally — even realising the capabilities
of these 'Hypercars'. — John Steel, first-time motoring writer;
exhausted but out on a 'high'.
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car: Daihatsu's funky Materia 
cd: Russian superstar Sergey's new single Girlfriend due out in June
book: Lamborghini Today
