Steve Cropley: Prodrive visit bodes well for winter motorsport
This week our man takes in a pop-up Porsche launch, visits a motoring Mecca and adds another tome to his reading list
Absorbing morning at Prodrive, the Banbury race engineering firm, where the car park was stuffed because everyone was working flat out on either last-minute fettling of Le Mans team Astons (we’ll know how they fared by the time you read this) or the brand-new Bahraini-backed BRX T1. The off-road racer is proceeding on a minute-by-minute schedule towards a shakedown starting next month, leading to the 4400-mile Dakar Rally in January.
Team principal and Prodrive founder David Richards showed me around. We heard the off-roader’s 3.0-litre Ford-derived V6 on full song on the dyno, saw a lot of (recyclable) composite panels being readied for final assembly and stood in awe beside the massive, triangulated steel spaceframe that forms the backbone of the whole vehicle. It’s a huge job, creating a competitive car for this uniquely punishing event, especially since most rivals have already-proven vehicles.
But Richards reckons the team’s mix of brilliant drivers (former winner Nani Roma is the first to be announced) with Bahraini financial muscle and Prodrive racing know-how can give established runners a hard time. It’ll be great for the rest of us to have something absorbing to watch in winter, when motorsport is normally shut.
*Thursday*
Into darkest Wiltshire, where Porsche established a pop-up road test site in a friendly pub so hacks could try the new Panamera 4S E-Hybrid, a full-sized saloon (or racy sport hybrid estate) whose electric motor and front-mounted V6 provide a storming 552bhp and 553lb ft of torque. And thus a 0-62mph time of just 3.7sec. This steaming performance is only part of the story. The way this car glides electrically (at speeds of up to 80mph) for its first 30ish miles is brilliant. And given the excellence of the body control, the big Pan rides beautifully, too, even in Sport Plus.
Apparently, 60% of big Porker buyers choose hybrid and I can see why. The only issue for me would be the width of this car: at times, it felt very uncomfortable on little roads through villages. But as I always say of new Porsches, whenever you get closer than 20 yards, you start seeing the exceptional quality – an uplifting experience.
*Saturday*
Spent a deeply enjoyable Saturday at Bicester Heritage working with car designer turned man of the cloth Rev Adam Gompertz on his latest REVS Facebook production. Lots of people contributed to this day-long mix of interviews, road tests and cheerfully car-based items such as an amazing contribution from the highly original Popbangcolour artist Ian Cook. It was all to raise money for three fine charities: Mind, Mission Motorsport and Bicester’s own StarterMotor, which encourages young people into skilled jobs around cars. Gompertz, who has had his own difficult times, has built his REVS community into a loyal Facebook group with 5000 members.
I kept thinking that if you shoehorned that lot into one church, you’d have a helluva congregation. Full marks to the church fathers, not usually regarded as progressive, for allowing Gompertz freedom to do good his own way.
*Monday*
I’m used to daily newspapers beating up motoring stories beyond what they’re worth, but today’s Times seemed weirdly downbeat about a hugely significant, coordinated plea from the entire European motor business for a conclusion to Brexit negotiations that permits our “highly coordinated” industry to continue functioning efficiently. They treated today’s piece like a bit of routine bleating, which seemed all wrong to me given that – as the SMMT’s redoubtable CEO, Mike Hawes, put it – we’re talking about EU-UK trade losses estimated at £100 billion between now and 2025, in a sector employing a staggering 14.6 million people! Maybe they’re so used to disaster these days that nothing impresses them…
*And another thing...*
Love Landies? Don’t miss this terrific Porter-published book about the very first and recently rescued JUE 477, owned and revived by Ineos’s Sir Jim Ratcliffe. The book is written, photographed and designed by Martin Port, a former Classic & Sports Car inmate, who does full justice to his talents over 128 absorbing pages.
*READ MORE*
*Revealed: Prodrive details new BRX Dakar rally off-roader*
*How Bicester Heritage will become a UK motoring haven*
*Prodrive: how it went from building rally cars to hybrid transit vans*