The moment of truth, and when we turn the key, we are not disappointed. The engine starts immediately with a muffled explosion of sound as air and fuel molecules combust in all 10-cylinders. We blip the throttle. Wap, wap! The revs rise and fall instantly and we know instinctively that this is why we prefer a good normally aspirated motor to a forced aspirated one. As addictive as turbo power is, you simply cannot get such sharp throttle response when you have to move a big column of pressurised air around the induction system every time you flex your right toe.
The upright cast aluminium pedals are museum quality pieces in themselves, and their bottom hinged organ pedal design is perfection in use. And here comes the first lesson in Carrera GT dynamics. To move the car off the line smoothly, you just have to select first gear and gently let the clutch in. The take-up of the ceramic clutch is so smooth that the 1,380kg GT just rolls off the line, and then you feed in throttle.
The motor picks up sweetly and you take second of the six forward gears. The clutch is medium to heavy as you would expect of a unit that has to pass 612bhp at a screaming 8,000rpm and 590Nm (435 lb ft) of torque at 5,750rpm. But it is oh so progressive in operation and feels much lighter on the fly.
The gearshift is amazing. It is light and positive and the gate has no lost movement. The slots are fairly close so you have to be deliberate, but it is spring loaded to the three-four plane hand, and the shifting mechanism is so well sorted you can literally use just a couple of fingers to shift ratios.
On the road, this makes the car very easy to drive. The perfect honing of every control movement creates a level of synergy where the controls become an extension of the driver’s will. Rather than driving the car, you begin to think it down the road and through the bends.
Now clear of the local town and its speed restrictions, we can begin to explore the engines performance. At low speeds, tractability is exemplary. In fact, in the ultimate lugging test, the 5,733cc V10 pulled smoothly from 1,000rpm and really vigorously from 2,500rpm. One gear from just over 25mph to 205mph (40 to 330km/h), now that’s impressive!
Use all the gears and all the revs however, and performance is explosive. Walter Rohrl told us that when the speed testing was carried out at the Papenburg proving grounds in north Germany earlier this year, he achieved 0-100km/h in 3.9 sec, 0-160km/h in 6.9 sec, 0-200km/h in 9.9 sec and the standing km in 20.0sec dead.
Round the next bend a long straight beckons, and we progressively pour on the power past the apex as the steering angle comes off. The V10 warble picks up steam behind our heads and by the time we are pointing straight down the road, it has morphed into an amazing scream with the rev counter needle heading for the 8,200rpm redline.
Between 6,000 and 8,000rpm, the sound is simply amazing, like an F1 car in the middle distance but with a lot more bass profundo. These lower frequencies balance out the soundtrack, making it much more appealing and far less penetrating than a pure high frequency assault like that delivered by the Ferrari 360 Modena.