Imagine having one of these, 650bhp, and a little over 970kg in this guise. These things must be immensely quick - they must have been insane compared to the competition in their day, and look at those stats, it's still going to be one of the fastest things on the road today. If the cabin was stripped back to racing spec and any soundproofing taken out, I'm sure you could get to 900kg, and then you're only 50kg off the weight of the racing car. Still, even at a top weight of 970kg, nothing would have been able to touch you then, and few things could even now.



In a way, as much as I awe at the plush interiors the likes of Lamborghini etc have been able to add to theirs cars (not so much Pagani, Spyker etc - overstyled tat) I wish the supercar buyer demographic was not so full of tarts who only want something that looks good while they climb out of it in Casino Square; if more buyers were motorsport enthusiasts who wanted stripped out, truly minimalistic race cars technology, we'd have more cars like this today. I suppose Gumpert were building along these lines, but even they were trying to include a plush luxury model to attract more buyers. The Apollo was raw, with it's noisy racing-spec fuel pump dominating the cabin noise, and it's exposed carbon fibre seats that were built into the tub. It was also ugly, but the game here was more about the pudding and less about the presentation - sadly, it seems despite serious engineering credibility, a car like that is just too much for buyers today, hence Gumpert struggling to sell a great deal of them.

I wish there were supercars that were not afraid to deafen you with cabin drone, the kind of car that you need to wear ear defenders in, and monitors to talk to your passengers, cars that rattled your fillings out, that left you shaken rather than stirred when you had taken it for a cheeky late night run. Sadly, it seems to be an ever diminishing market which as far as I can remember at this hazy hour of the morning, seems to be pretty much uncatered for in late 2012.

Yep that could be a good shout, as it's not the kind of thing "youngsters" like to crash into lampposts, so might carry a lower-than-expected insurance bill too...

FWIW I had a 1.6 Peugeot 405 fairly early on in my driving career and that was surprisingly cheap to run. Although you do tend to become default taxi driver of choice for Friday/Saturday/Sunday ...

Do you like the Vauxhall Astra 1.8 Bertone? If you are looking at the Audi A4, then I doubt the insurance should not be too different and a few people have had decent quotes on them - maybe just something to think about. They look decent aswell in my opinion.