Twenty years ago, there was a golden opportunity for ‘grassroots supercars’ – primarily those from Noble and TVR, but also some from Marcos and Ultima and even Caterham and Lotus – to make their opposite numbers from blue-chip exotic brands like Ferrari, Lamborghini and Porsche look a bit silly.
Now, however, that task looks so much harder that I wonder if it’s even possible.
At the turn of the 21st century, the Ferrari 360 Modena made less than 400bhp and weighed little under 1500kg. Designing a spaceframe alternative to it that might be 20% lighter wasn’t a huge stretch; and with the value of sterling strong, fitting it with a turbo engine (or a Chevrolet small-block V8) that made more power and considerably more torque wasn’t hard, either.
Do both things and you could create a car of pretty incendiary, giant-killing performance, and with all the dynamic advantages of lightness into the bargain. It wasn’t hard to understand the selling point of Noble’s M12 and Noble M600; you just had to drive one.
Today, however, the establishment supercars that the new Noble M500 is aiming for aren’t nearly so vulnerable. The market conditions that once made it viable to import powerful V8s from the US or chassis from South Africa no longer exist. And if you even want to match the sprint times of the upcoming Ferrari 296 GTB or 3.0sec McLaren Artura, you’re going to need a sophisticated, torque-vectored hybrid powertrain, rather than just plastic bodywork, a dustbin lid of a turbo, a strong clutch and a fast shifting arm.
I really do wish the new Noble well, particularly as an old-school, lightweight, manually involving alternative to the electrified state-of-the-supercar-art as we now have it. I wonder if it can bring back the glory days of its forebears.
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It seems misguided to introduce a fossil supercar in the current climate. (I use the word climate in more than one sense.) The market is shifting and this will end up being a 'classic car' as soon as it arrives. But when even classic cars are now being converted to electric, this vehicle makes no sense.
@HiPo289
We still have 8 years to indulge ourselves buying insane cars, so lets not hold ot the white flag just yet, and follow mindlessly the Government edicts on how we should all behave ( they are already controlling how we are allowed to think or speak).
And as you say they will all become instant classics (and still usable on the roads), who knows, maybe synthetic fuels will be in use by then!
HiPo289, Cars like this rarely do 70,000 over their life time, they tend to be toys, used sparingly. Given that this is probably a fair cross over point for EVs it would be bad for the planet to buy an EV version of this Nobel (even if one existed). I am quite sure Noble could have produced a EV version instead, but i suspect they know their market.
By all means buy an EV as your daily driver if thats what you want (choice is good), but we cars like this should remain ICE as long as possible.