Eterniti Hemera: the details

What, a Cayenne Turbo S too slow, shy and retiring for you? Fear not, 'help' is at hand...

There's a very good chance you're not going to like what you're about to see. But the Eterniti Hemera is a very interesting embodiment of the way things (well, the money) is going these days. And the tastes that are going to be driving the future of luxury and performance cars.

Frankfurt car didn't hide its origins...

The Eterniti Hemera first surfaced at Frankfurt earlier in the year, following a series of deliberately mysterious press releases. The teasers promised "A different kind of luxury car brand" and the world's first "super SUV" built by a "boutique luxury carmaker, uniquely based in London."

What we got, when the covers came off, was - apparently - a £160K Cayenne in a bodykit.

Not, you're probably thinking, the most PH of cars, 600-plus horsepower V8 or not.

But being generous, open minded souls when Eterniti invited us to a swanky London restaurant to tell us more about the Hemera we said yes. Not that we're cheap, you understand.

Three months on from that Frankfurt debut the Hemera's styling has evolved to put - a bit - of distance between it and its Cayenne underpinnings. Motorsport engineer (Le Mans racers, the Lotus Evora GT4 and Jag XJ220 among his previous projects) Alistair Macqueen has joined as chief engineer and Essex boy Johnny Herbert recruited to try and lend the project a degree of credibility and celebrity sparkle.

Bodywork is all replaced with carbon fibre

Put simply Eterniti buys a stock Cayenne Turbo S, rips away all the non-structural panels and replaces them with engorged carbon fibre replacements. Engine tweaks to the standard 4.8-litre twin-turbo V8 unleash 600hp and the interior is reconfigured with separate reclining rear seats, extra legroom and, according to Macqueen, "about five cows worth of leather."

By now you're probably thinking, OK, footballer's chariot, why should I be interested?

True, the Hemera is hard to fall in love with. But it does reflect a very interesting cultural shift in the luxury car market and one that British firms like Eterniti are uniquely placed to capitalise on.

Because while a few premiership training grounds and the smarter parts of Cheshire and London might reverberate to the (apparently) mighty rumble from the Hemera's de-catted exhausts around 90 per cent of the cars are following the money east to markets like China and Russia, where the appetite for cars like this grows at an astounding rate. And it's a need currently not catered to by the mainstream.

If you build it they will, apparently, pay for it

Indeed, by its nature the mainstream isn't what Eterniti customers want. China's millionaires are happy to take the 143 per cent import duty hit and spend getting on for half a million quid on a ruded up Cayenne. The very fact it's so expensive and exclusive is the appeal, ditto the fact it's built here in London where Eterniti's status as a manufacturer means access to the markets denied to 'mere' tuners like Kahn and others.

Listening to Eterniti man Kenny Chen you get a flavour of why a team of mystery investors thinks the project is worth putting money into. The death of Maybach and failure of Bentley and similar to come up with suitably flashy SUVs has left them a gap, the Hemera configured to appeal to those who like to be driven as well as drive themselves. Hence the 150mm of extra legroom in the back, reclining seats and standard-fit iPads.

And what attracts the likes of Herbert and Macqueen to the project? For the latter it's the engineering challenge. "It's oxymoron," he shrugs. "You shouldn't be able to do it but the challenge of making it work is what attracted me." This from a man who, minutes earlier, was discussing the difficulty in overcoming the Evora's awkwardly tall centre of gravity when making it into a convincing race car. And then seamlessly switches to how he's made the Hemera ride properly on its 23-inch wheels.

Styling has moved on and soon to be finalised

And Herbert? He's a realist and chipper front-man for the project. A self confessed tinkerer with, as he puts it, a passion for damping and chassis set-up he's enjoyed working with Macqueen at Prodrive's Warwickshire test track.

Nobody at Eterniti pretends the Hemera is the kind of car that'll appeal to mainstream European tastes. But that's OK, because it's not really for us.

Meanwhile if there are any Cayenne owners out there in need of replacement panels there'll be a stack of 'em round the back of Eterniti's Park Royal HQ once production gets going properly next spring.

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richard300

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