Ever since Carl Benz strapped a
three-quarter-horsepower four-stroke to his Big Wheel, man has been fascinated
by the top speed of an automobile: How fast does it go? And more important, can
I make it go faster?
Nardo >
Test facility in the heel of
Italy; features a 7.8-mile banked ring that simulates driving in a straight
line at 149 mph. Built by fiat in 1975, now owned by Porsche.
With the van’s572-hp flat-six finally running, the pop-up
roof latched, and all cushions stowed, it manages 168 mph. Not bad fora vehicle
with a fully functioning beer tap.
“We’ve
used the same tires before on a Brabus at 230 mph and had no problems,” Siemons
tells me. “It’s not the tires making the car unstable, it’s the other way
’round.”
GSC’s
car isn’t quite that quick, but even with its stability issues, it pulls 205
mph on its first run, with more to come, thanks to engine mods boosting the
car’s twin-turbo AMG V-8 from 550 hp to 671. The CLS from tuner GAD Motors
makes even more—almost 800 hp courtesy of larger turbos and a custom
exhaust—and rockets to 220 mph, but then limps into the pits with a suspected
head-gasket failure. That still puts it 3 mph ahead of the 795-hp Audi R8 V10
turbo from SKN, and into first place overall.
While
reviewers derided the outgoing R tronic transmission for shifting too slowly,
the exceptionally swift S tronic solves all those lag-y shift issues and routes
power in a business-like manner to all four wheels through the infamous Audi
quattro all-wheel drive system.
The handful of other tuners that
top their speed targets include Gemballa, now back on an even keel after
founder Uwe Gemballa was murdered in South Africa. Its 690-hp Pana- mera Turbo
goes 211 mph, up 22 mph on the stock 520-hp machine. Another is MTM’s Audi A8
TDI, which, barring some cool forged rims, looks like a bone-stock business
express, right down to the blazer on the hanger behind the driver’s seat. At
186 mph, it’s the fastest diesel of the day, but the 174 mph posted by
Techart’s hideous Porsche Cayenne is almost as impressive, given the truck’s
cliff-face aerodynamics.
We squarely believe that as ugly as it is, it gets light years worse
every time a tuning house lays a finger upon it. The Techart seen here is a
case in point.
Hanging
out with Techart’s PR guy, Bastian Schafer, I get some insight into the tuner’s
world. He reveals how difficult it is to get the media to cover new product
unless it’s a 700-hp 911, and how tense his firm’s relationship with Porsche
is. The Techart team adores Porsches; that’s why they’re in the game. But this
is an unrequited love affair, one sadly punctuated by legal threats and a cold
shoulder from the Stuttgart mothership, which doesn’t allow Porsche branding on
Techart’s cars or promotional material.
Crazy
as a 174-mph diesel SUV is, it can’t compete for silliness with HGP’s 735-hp
Mk 6 VW Golf, whose twin-turbo VR6 chucks it around the bowl at 205 mph. Or the
543-hp, front-drive Opel Corsa from Klasen Motors. Imagine going 192 mph in a
Ford Fiesta. Terrifying.
Sporty elegance characterizes the design of the TechArt
aerodynamic-enhancement kit which was developed in the wind tunnel.
But this is what makes these events—the “what if?” creations
and the guys who dream them up. Not near-stock cars like the Edo 458, which
manages a paltry 3 mph more than Ferrari claims for the stock machine. Guys
like Sven Thomsen, whose TH Automobile exists to make
Volkswagen vans go unfeasibly fast.