Car performance

Maybe you ask yourself why we cover today a story about the Gumpert Apollo.

Short answers: 1. It's a great German car, 2. It's powered by an Audi 4.2 V8 engine.

Straight out of the gate and I've stalled the Apollo because it has a clutch that's as progressive as someone snatching their hand from a Bunsen burner.

I fumble for the start button among the shotgun-blast of toggle switches on the dash, before firing the Audi 4.2 V8 back up and piling on the revs to pull away.

I pray my passenger can't see me gurning with the effort of balancing 650bhp on the see-saw of 1,150kg and rear tyres the width of industrial lawn rollers. It's not pretty, but we're still going in the same direction - and nobody is screaming. Not yet.

Everything's gone 'whooshy'. I swear there's a place where your vision goes black-and-white in order to create the resolution necessary to stop you becoming a carbon-fibre mosaic on the nearest tree, and it's fair to say that the extra gumption feels beefy.

It's provided by a pair of turbos the size of footballs, and the thrust surfs the Apollo along the scarred dual carriageway outside Stoke Poges like a supersonic tidal bore.