Well, this is a turn up: a tunnel. The car is detonating sound. like buckshot. You W swear you can hear every firing stroke, but then so can the poor office workers who are decamping to see what is causing the commotion. Oh, and it's getting a bit smoky in here, and this black vinyl is hotter than the sun. Our NSU 1000TTS wants to bolt, initial hesitation leading to a pronounced lunge with only a few millimetres of throttle travel. This is an angry buzzbomb when prodded. Just one more run, the snapper suggests, you know, to go with the last half a dozen 'one last runs'. Sorry everyone, please don't judge.
Out come the phones to record the moment, each onlooker seemingly astounded that something so small can make so much noise. That and perhaps marvelling at the driver who appears to have taken a turn for the salmon pink and sprung a leak. Yeah, sure, heaven forbid we should have the windows down for the photography. That would be awful. Just 10 minutes in and it's as though you have been mainlining espresso. We're buzzing, but so far we haven't left the environs of an industrial estate somewhere in Lisbon, Portugal, its exact whereabouts, we are afraid, top secret (except to those who work nearby, obviously).
What is telling is that on our arrival this car is the one nearest the door. It belongs to a candidate for 'world's nicest man', Manuel Ferrão, a publishing magnate whose collecting instincts stretch to the obligatory Ferraris, Astons, Maseratis and the like. He also has a Cobra 427, a Ford GT40, assorted Lotus and Lola sports-racers, Group B rally cars (with works warpaint and without) and lots and lots of Abarths. The point is that this isn't a car you would associate with someone whose cache is dripping with exotica, but, as he is quick to point out, it's fun. Think of the NSU as a German Abarth - a car whose praises are rarely sung outside its homeland, but which deserve to be.
This story is from the June 2023 edition of Classic & Sports Car.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the June 2023 edition of Classic & Sports Car.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
DOWN MEMORY LANE
As C&SC hits 500 not out, our most prolific and popular wordsmith turns Jackanory to tell the story of his lifelong link to the magazine
Locked & loaded
Land-Rover's SAS prototype and Minerva's Blindé vehicle were built to lend agility reconnaisance and versatility to Europe's special forces
SHOCK THERAPY
Testing an electric Fiat 500, and the idea of EV-converted classics, with a drive across the capital
Fire in the hole
The Huayra Pronello Ford combined advanced aerodynamic ideas with brutal V8 power for a long-lost Argentinian sports-prototype series
Brighton belles
This pair of pioneer machines found fame in the 1953 caper Genevieve, a film that helped give old-car ownership global appeal
FORTUNE 500
It was less famous than the Indy and Daytona 500s, shorter-lived than the Brooklands 500, but memories of the BOAC 500 live long
To be continued...
After the fabulous C2, the best of the rest convene from seven decades of America's original sports car dynasty
AMERICAN BEAUTY
For eight generations and 70 years, the Chevy Corvette has been the backbone of the US sports car industry. As it turns 60, the C2 remains the most desirable of all
THE LAST TEMPTATION
This, the final Ferrari 500 Superfast marks the end of a line of GTs conceived for the mega-rich, not just the merely wealthy
Martin BUCKLEY
'I was enthralled by the lavish feel, tarnished only by an anti-corrosion warranty sticker added as an afterthought'
