There is nothing easy about the speed, handling and raw power of the impressive 9ff GT9, writes Nick Hall.
JAN FATTHAUER, boss of Dortmund company 9ff, seemed a little too keen with his invitation to experience the speed of his GT9. He was standing in front of his own creation, which should go on to become the fastest production car in the world before too long, offering me a ride, and I was nervous.
"Last night we hit 386km/h," he said.
"Tonight, if it's dry, we'll go for 400. Want to come?"
Truthfully I hesitated before agreeing. It was wet that night in any case, and part of me was glad to see the rain.
Just a few short minutes after being posted through the rollcage into the hotseat of the GT9, the racing clutch fired me down the road in a stabbing, jumping judder before internal organs punched through the racing seat and simply never caught up.
Healthy respect for life and mild intimidation kept me within sane limits, but even that was relative.
The Driftbox pressed to the screen scrolled round like an out of control Telethon counter, the big band clash of a 987bhp 4-litre twin turbo screaming towards the 8,000rpm redline and wastegates that belonged on a flood defence did their best to draw blood from my ears.
I could only breathe on the gearchanges, with a meaty, manual six-speed box, then, with a nudge on the throttle the oxygen was blown from my body again as the car leapt down the road in a single bound.
With firm instructions to keep 3,000rpm through the engine to keep it running, every change brought a fresh wave of wheelspin.
There is no traction control on this car, not yet anyway. There will be, and it will save lives as pushed hard this car will spin those monster rears in fifth, and possibly sixth. One sneeze and you'll land in tomorrow.
Violent acceleration is an overused term, but even with my kidneys taking time to catch up, it's still a trite explain for a car that has a whopping 963Nm of torque kicking in at 6,000rpm/
Only the numbers do it justice: a 1,326kg car hits 100km/h in less than 2.5 seconds and outpaces a Bugatti Veyron to 300km/h, hitting that landmark number in just 17.6 seconds and over a distance of 870 metres on a cold day.
And even then it doesn't slow down, it just tugs towards the horizon like the world's end is nipping at its heels.
A swift nudge on the fearsome ceramic composite brakes sheds the speed like a snake sheds skin, and then it's on to the next short gap, and the next eye-burning blast.
But then it was always going to be brutal in a straight line. That 987bhp figure is on the spec sheet simply because Fatthauer "hates these 1,001bhp claims", and he made his name creating 910bhp 911 Cabriolets and the record-setting Vf400 hard-top that could bend time, space and laws in a heartbeat.
The GT9 is 10 years of solid thinking, three years of build time and €1 million of Fatthauer's own money, though, plus countless hours.
To dismiss it as a straight line missile would be to miss the point and Fatthauer won't even sell one of the 20 he'll build if he feels horsepower and Veyron killing are all the customer cares about.
"I had gone as far as I could with the 911, as I was fighting against lift beyond 270km/h It was time for a new car and this shape has evolved in my mind for a long time," he explained.
"I also wanted to take the company to the next level and create the antithesis to the Veyron, which is too perfect, too easy. I wanted a car my customers could use on a Sunday afternoon and it would give them a little fight, a little fun."
And it is. Push too hard in the corners and the back end will step out on this monster slab of car and it will take a real driver to manhandle it at the speeds Fatthauer dreams about at night, even with a mysterious and "very special" LSD.
And that six-speed is a big selling point as nobody has asked for the optional sequential box that he's happy to fit. But the weird thing for a palpatation-inducing rocket like this is, it's comfortable and a rough PASM equivalent will make the finished car even better.
It's louder than Spinal Tap, but even with 10cm of suspension travel, it skips off bumps like a perfectly weighted stone on a marble-flat lake.
"All the staff have been surprised that, at 240km/h, it feels like a Golf," said Fatthauer, and while that might point to his engineers working too hard on this car and not hard enough on their VWs, it's still mighty composed considering its potential.
Power steering makes it fingertip light and precise, too. In fact only the racing clutch prevents this being the clichéd supercar your granny could drive: it would snap her leg.
That aside, this really is simplicity itself until you go looking for that last slice of performance that separates the men from the boys.
Visually, form has given way to function at every step of the process in a car that looks like a 911 that has been flattened with a steak mallet.
But Fatthauer has worked with Porsches for years and while this is a 9ff, it's basically the best of Porsche, heavily modified, and then some.
The chassis is inspired by a stretched GT1 racer, the block and gearbox casing come from a 996 Turbo, which were a living nightmare to fit into the mid-engined position without ending with six reverse gears, the ratios from a "special edition" 993, the crash structure from a GT3 and special components from the RSR race cars and a whole host of other Porsche goodies. 911-philes will find everything eerily familiar, from the lights to the ignition and even the handbrake, passenger airbag, seatbelts and, yes, a stereo.
That open rear really is finished, although there's a closed back option that looks a thousand times better and this configuration for the airflow through the car. Then there's that intake manifold, coated in 24-carat gold, officially that's for heat insulation, but I have my doubts and even Fatthauer suggests it's as much about aesthetics.
And they're found wanting on the inside. This vivid blue, race suit-inspired idea came from Fatthauer's wife, and it's a little over-the-top for my tastes.
Luckily this is a bespoke car and anyone paying the €500,000 entry fee - before tax - can ask for anything.
With that in mind it's almost ironic the whole car sits on a flat, plywood floor, as Fatthauer simply couldn't match the weight and rigidity with all the carbon-fibre in the world, but protecting the car with woodseal would be a bizarre moment at this price.
Such things don't matter, though, it's all about having the fastest car in the world. When the GT9 hits 258mph and takes the record from the SSC Ultimate Aero, which itself overturned the Bugatti Veyron just a few months ago, four sales will turn into 20 before the braking zone and Fatthauer can set to work on his next world beater.
Next time, I might even go along for the ride.