Beast mode

RML's GT Hypercar promises to lap the 'Ring faster than a Porsche 911 GT3 RS yet also excel as a smooth super-GT. RICHARD LANE finds out how it's done

- 

Being at the wheel of RML's single P39 prototype, as it stalks the outside lane of Millbrook's high-speed bowl, is like filling up at a deserted forecourt at 3am: familiar but faintly unreal.

The major controls and ergonomics are as per the 992.1 Porsche 911 Turbo S donor, which RML would prefer arrived for the four-week, half-a-million-pound conversion process with fewer than 10,000 miles on the odo. As such, if you're confident driving even a sweet little Carrera, getting about in a GT Hypercar (P39 is the codename) should be a doddle.

Or so you'd think. Underslung off the steering boss are four serious-looking rotary dials, some of which are angrily backlit in red. My view out of the rear window is also more compromised than that of any mad Lambo, mainly because there is no rear window, just a dark nook in which lurks a steel half-cage. And beginning just above my head is the five-feet-long intake tract for a 907bhp flat six. This ensures that bouts of heavy throttle sound like God whispering directly into your ear.

"Very much a beast with two faces" is how Michael Mallock describes the car, which was revealed in full production form at this year's Salon Privé concours. The GT Hypercar is the first ware from RML's new Bespoke division. The department is overseen by Mallock and tasked with delivering rare-groove dream machines that delight clients and show major car makers what the firm can do, and do rapidly, by applying motorsport knowhow to road car manufacture.