WHAT'S ALL THE FUSS ABOUT?

It's only a £1.5m road-legal version of Prodrive's eye-popping rally raider swapping the Saudi desert for the clogged-up streets of London’s West End. All in a day's work for Matt Prior

- Matt Prior

It would seem that they’ve removed the massive rear wing. But as the good people of Prodrive unload their curious new car from a trailer into the depths of central London, I’m not sure that has left it much less conspicuous. Heads turn. Cyclists stop. Runners take pictures. Questions come. What? How many? How much? How fast? Has Fisher-Price made a 4x4?

First, then, to what. This sand-coloured blob, this “Ferrari of the desert” (as per Prodrive boss David Richards), this 1:1 Tamiya fever dream turned reality is the Prodrive Hunter, and it barely fits onto the trailer it has arrived on.

Length isn’t its problem: at only 4.6 metres, it’s shorter than the BMW 3 Series. Nor is height: at 1.85 metres, it’s lower than the Range Rover. But it is 2.3 metres wide, which is 100mm wider than an original Hummer, and you will remember how wide that was. Sean Connery couldn’t drive one around San Francisco in The Rock without “hitting every f***in’ thing in sight” and there’s considerably more space there than in Knightsbridge.

Anyway, the Hunter isn’t much narrower than the biggest trucks that are allowed to conventionally ply Britain’s roads, plus it’s a lefthand drive, the tiny door mirrors don’t adjust, the side windows are small and there’s no rear glass.