When, as a young man, Joop Donkervoort began importing the Lotus Seven to mainland Europe, he hit a problem. It wasn’t road legal, so he had to make some minor alterations. It would appear that in the intervening 42 years, he hasn’t stopped.
This is the Donkervoort D8 GTO-JD70, built to celebrate Joop’s 70th birthday and hence restricted to 70 examples. It’s based on the regular D8 GTO, which, beyond being a roadster with its engine in front of its occupants and rear-wheel drive, has moved on quite a lot further from that Lotus than the Caterham Seven has in the intervening decades.
There’s still a mainly-tubular steel chassis, welded at Donkervoort’s Lelystad factory in the Netherlands, but it’s mated to structural carbonfibre, which is also produced in-house; Donkervoort’s factory does manufacturing, not just assembly.
All in, the chassis weighs just 54kg yet has 20kNm/deg of torsional rigidity. Pushrod-wishbone suspension is fitted all round.
For a time, Donkervoort ran Cosworth power. Then it struck a deal with Audi for a V6. It reverted to Cosworth when this fell through before coming to a new arrangement to use Audi’s 2.5-litre five-cylinder engine, as found in the Audi RS3, thanks to Ulrich Hackenberg, Audi’s then-technical director, liking the idea.
That was the start of the D8 model line, which proved to be a spectacularly fast racing car; with a roof on it, the D8 GT won its class at the Dubai 24 Hour in 2011. Customers wanted it as a roadster, though, so here you have it: the D8 GTO, with ‘O’ for ‘Open’.