A luxury hotel on the Costa Del Sol with a fleet of performance cars parked outside, and the prospect of spending two days driving them over some of Europe's most demanding roads; around that there are gourmet meals and a bar that doesn't require any payment in exchange for alcohol. On first impressions, it's fair to say that - free drinks notwithstanding - there's a hint of Carlsberg to proceedings.
It looked a very promising start...
Or is there? The first hint this isn't going to be a no-holds barred driving paradise comes at the safety briefing, delivered by a Dutch guy who seems to have missed his true vocation as a drill instructor. Apparently we're personally liable for the first 7,500 euros of any damage that happens when we're driving the cars, and they are all fitted with telemetry boxes that have been programmed to record any perceived misbehaviour. Although not ordered to wear a numbered badge in the shape of a penny farthing I'm still getting distinct Prisoner vibes.
Chili reception
I've been brought here by Continental, so the tyre giant can show off some of its latest offerings. All of these feature its grammatically challenged but ultra-grippy Black Chili compound, which apparently started life in the tyres of racing bicycles. There are a variety of Conti products fitted to a range of performance cars - from a Tesla to a Corvette - with various road loops through some of the lumpier and twistier parts of Andalusia.
Silent running places new demands on tyres
The good news is that our group of scuzzy journos has been joined on the trip by Richard Durance, Continental's UK head of Original Equipment - the guy who has to negotiate manufacturers' often contradictory demands that new tyres grip harder, make less noise and reduce rolling resistance over the preceding tyre. He knows pretty much everything there is to know about tyres, and he makes his favourite subject far more interesting than you would believe possible.
Before we start there's lots of Powerpoint-delivered statporn. Heavily edited highlights include the fact Continental makes more than 250,000 tyres a day, employs 1,000 R&D engineers and that one in three new cars in Europe rolls out of the showroom wearing the company's rubber. The smallest tyre it makes is a 125/80 R13, the biggest a gargantuan 315/25 ZR23. And with many sizes available in multiple compounds and speed ratings there are literally hundreds to choose between.
Model Student
Car press launches tend to be a bunfight, but here there's no choice of what to drive when. I'm glad to start off in a Tesla Model S, despite graphics that are clearly visible from space. It's a great calibration car, especially as Durance is hitching a ride so I've got a chance to tap into his expertise on why manufacturers choose particular fitments.
M4 not going sideways? Try harder!
Tesla is relatively unusual with its tyre choice priorities being twisted towards maximum refinement; the lack of any engine noise means that quiet running was the highest priority. It rides on ContiSportContact 5s with what we're instructed to call ContiSilent™ technology. This was originally developed for the Audi RS6 and RS7, and Durance has helpfully brought along a cross-section that shows that this consists of a foam insert that has apparently been designed to absorb some of the shock waves that propagate inside the tyre when it rotates at speed. And now I'm concentrating on listening rather than the Model S's hopped-up milk float impression, it does seem impressively quiet over broken surfaces.
Durance admits that negotiating with the OEMs can be a protracted and (sometimes) painful process. Tyre development starts early on in the engineering of a new car - apparently Continental began work on the Range Rover Evoque's unique fitment in 2007, four years before it went on sale. Several tyre makers will always bid for the cherished OE status, and Durance says it's almost unheard of for a manufacturer to accept any tyre maker's first attempt at a finished product. There's almost always a series of revisions to tune the performance somewhere, especially in the tricky compromise of minimising rolling resistance while maximising grip. I get the sense he's not a fan of run-flats, either: "the beautiful thing about a tyre is that it's the air that carries the load normally, the carcass is just an envelope for it." The cross-section of the run-flat looks very chunky next to those of normal tyres.
After coffee and cakes its time to swap to a F-Type, this time riding on very aggressive Jag-specfic ContiForceContacts - and yes, there's another ™ on there. It would be hard to find more of a contrast with the near-silent Tesla; the F-Type is an S roadster and tyre noise isn't really an issue over the pops and bangs the supercharged engine sends through its exhaust. Grip levels are huge, although I honestly couldn't say whether they are huger than those of previous F-Types I've driven. However I make the interesting discovery that the telemetry boxes beep in admonishment when they encounter something they dislike, in the Jag's case often being set off by the loadings caused by bumps that the Tesla didn't seem to notice.
We tend to think of grip as being a fairly constant thing, but it turns out that - like everything else - it's carefully tuned; you can apparently make a tyre with stronger turn-in or which delivers more adhesion under really big loadings. The most responsive tyres have their plies near to the surface, but that obviously cuts down on tread depth and therefore both wet-weather performance and lifespan. It really is a game of permanently spinning plates.
... to Macan diesel. Conti does a lot of tyres!
The F-Type drives exactly like every other one I've driven; great fun for half an hour, but probably not civilised enough to be the car you'd choose if asked to select one to spend the rest of your life in.
Breaking a sweat
After lunch it's time for a go in a Porsche Macan diesel and then a brief blast in the Corvette. The Macan feels predictably tame in this company, its ContiSportContact 5P SUV tyres reflecting the compromise inherent in the entire car; the impression it does of being a proper sports car struggles in the company of actual sports cars. The Corvette is as much fun as ever: loud, raucous and - despite the best efforts of its ContiSportContact 5s - with an enlivening enthusiasm for rear-led shenanigans. The telemetry box is soon beeping again; I might well be facing an early shower.
Not your usual tyre test!
The day's modest revelation comes with a go in a Mercedes CLA45, wearing the newly launched SportContact 6 - I've given up on the ™s now. These are claimed to offer more grip and better steering feel than the SportContact 5s. Yes, there's a graph to prove it. Although I didn't have a '5-clad CLA45 on hand to make a back-to-back comparison with the strange looking little saloon did seem to drive with both serious grip and a degree more precision than I remember from earlier cars.
Testing times
This has been much more fun that tyre testing normally is. I've been on two magazine tyre megatests and can report that they are even more boring to attend than they often are to read. Most time is spent sitting around while sweating technicians wrestle rims on and off cars to the sound of whirring air wrenches; and then trying to think of a numerical value to write in the box for "transient mid-corner response - DRY". It's definitely better to have a fleet of fast cars in Spain, even ones fitted with electronic spies. It's a shame we haven't been able to compare them directly to anything else, but I can confirm that Continental takes this stuff very, very seriously.