The 414bhp Volvo P1800: Driving Cyan's race-bred resto-mod

It also – with no supercharger and a turbocharger moved low and out of sight, and shorn of loads of other plastics and ancillaries – looks ace, like a proper old-school twin-cam.

Drive goes through a dog-leg five-speed manual gearbox sourced from Holinger in Australia (one of the finest decisions made in decades in the driver’s car realm, as we’ll come back to) to the rear wheels via a limited-slip differential. Suspension is by double wishbones all around. There is no anti-lock braking, no traction control and no assistance for the brakes at all, although there is power-assisted steering. The weight is only 990kg and only 47% of that is on the front but the front tyres are 245/40 R18s. With quick steering and a small but delightful Momo Prototipo steering wheel, the steering was considered too heavy without assistance.

An original P1800 never wore tyres that big, of course. But it never had a chassis like this nor an engine that makes 414bhp at 7000rpm or 336lb ft at 6000rpm, nor revved to 7700rpm. “We want it to feel as naturally aspirated as possible,” Hans Bååth, Cyan’s general manager for cars, shouts over monsoon-levels winds in Peak District. “So when you get to 5000rpm and it feels fast, keep going.”

This is, you suspect, a car that wants to be driven. In ethos, it seems most like an Alfaholics GTA-R, a car stripped back to beyond the original and rebuilt better with extraordinary care and precision – and a swankier engine. We loved the GTA-R when we experienced it last year and Bååth tells me I’ll be the first person to have driven both.

So I slink in, over a roll cage bar and into deep, supportive seats and a low-slung, genuinely comfortable driving position. The steering wheel doesn’t adjust but it doesn’t matter. The seat is fab and the tall gearlever extends way towards you. Fit and finish around the cockpit are exceptional: beautifully stitched leather, nice fabric and a great, simple array of dials and toggle switches. Race teams do know where to put stuff so it’s easy to find while you concentrate on driving.

A small, classic key, like the sort you’d have found on a filing cabinet, fires the engine to a loud but refined idle. Nothing terribly unusual so far. The pedal spacing, heights and weights are all absolutely perfect. There’s even a footrest with a main-beam button just like the old days. I grab the gearlever and… holy moly. It’s long, not overtly weighted, but slots into first with such tremendous precision that I try moving it around the gate a few times just for the sake of it. It really is something else. Check over the shoulder – the mirrors are small and the interior mirror is mounted to the dashboard, not the roof – and we’re off.

Cyan’s P1800 eases away. It’s firmly damped, but not harsh. Body control’s impeccable but, well, the body is light, after all. There’s not a hint of chassis flex.

At 1748mm wide, owing to its extended hot-rod wheel arches, the Cyan is around 50mm wider than a standard P1800, but still a truly compact car, and only 4203mm long. In feel, then, think a bit bigger, a bit less wieldy, than a Caterham 7, but not by that much.

The steering is medium weighted, superbly accurate and remarkably free of kickback. It doesn’t take on much additional weight as you add cornering forces, but it retains its smoothness. Bååth tells me it’s not fully calibrated yet. I like it, but I’d accept a bit less isolation for a bit more feel.

But I’d be splitting hairs. It’s a totally immersive drive. The engine’s noisy, the transmission whine even more so, and mooching around at 3000, 4000 revs, you start to wonder if the full 414bhp is there. It is, if you search for it: stay in second gear when all the noise tells you to grab third, as in a Porsche Cayman GT4, and really extend its legs. Then you’ll find the power, and the poise, and grip, and balance, to back it up.

And with such composure in the chassis and smoothness in the steering comes the gearshift. The stick rattles quite often but moves between gears more like the speed controller on an old-fashioned pillar drill or lathe than a car’s gearlever. I can’t remember the last time shifting gears was this much of a pleasure. The whole experience is engaging like nothing modern this side of a Caterham, Ariel or Lotus Elise.

Compared with a GTA-R? I think I found the Alfa more entertaining but wouldn’t want to call the comparison: the Alfa was the first car like this I’d driven, and your second taste of something is never as intense as the first. Besides, with a bit more soundproofing and dampers slackened a touch, the Cyan P1800 would make an exceptional grand tourer and I don’t think GTA-R could be.