Having been refused the chance to buy a Ferrari Enzo, most rich young men would simply turn to Porsche and ask for a place on the Carrera GT waiting list. That's exactly what Arash Farboud did, but then in a fit of petulant rage he went and started his own company anyway, with the intention of building a car to blow a Ferrari off the road.
Farboud started in 1999 with a wild concept, a Porsche GT1 replica, and he freely admits that his company should have gone no further. It's one thing building a shiny new prototype and lapping up attention at the shows. It's quite another turning that dream into a reality, and most fledgling manufacturers fall at the mass production hurdle.
But Arash didn't fall away into the shadows; the 29-year-old set up a workshop opposite the family pharmaceutical company that pays for his impressive collection of exotica. Then, with the help of just two full time engineers, he gave painful birth to a supercar company.
Cost issues and manufacturing realities consigned the GT1 concept to the bin, and several evolutions down the line Farboud ended up with three working prototypes of the more refined GTS. The concept may have been tempered over the last five years, but it's still anything but tame.
Moto GP ace Loris Capirossi has already put down his deposit, and he wants the more powerful prototype. It's nice to know that even megastars are guided by their wives, though, as his better half looks set to demand a production car.
The Farboud is an aggressive machine, but its design has a subtle elegance missing from its immediate competition from TVR and Noble. The GTS is a classically proportioned sports car that looks right from every angle, except perhaps for that angular gouge from the side. It spent serious time in the wind tunnel to hone its basic shape and optimize the low-slung front splitter and diffuser, and the decision to leave a rear wing out of the mix is at least wise from a styling point of view.
On the prototype there's no sound insulation, my hand smashed against the dashboard when I selected first gear and there is no key, just toggle switches and a starter button. It's six months and some major touches away from completion, but bringing this V6 monster to life banished all thoughts of panel gaps and loose plastic.
The prototypes are fitted with Audi's 2.8-liter engine, bored out to 2.96 liters and fitted with twin turbos, together with new pistons and a variety of reinforced components. Dialynx, the British firm that originally assisted Spyker in its quest to extract ludicrous horsepower from Audi units, carried out the work on the V6 that now runs with 2.8 bar of boost. The results, predictably, are explosive.
A bridging relay kept the horsepower down to a mere 400 bhp, but one of the red buttons on the steering wheel unlocked another 200. Only one journalist has pressed it so far, and then only for a few seconds.
The zero to 60 mph time of 3.7 seconds felt more than conservative as this car tears off down the road with the slightest encouragement. There are no in-gear acceleration figures, but it stayed with a Carrera GT all the way to 140 mph in a highly illegal road race before the Porsche driver saw sense and lifted. Farboud has dictated a 180-mph top speed, refusing the obvious opportunity to break the 200-mph barrier, to make sure his creation is near untouchable when it comes to real world, midrange punch.
Aside from the blistering speed, it's the noise and violence that really marks the Farboud out as the turbos kick in like dragons snorting behind the snug racing seat. And when the boost kicks in mid-corner, this machine has the power to send the unwary driver spinning into the trees. I experienced firsthand the potential danger when the Audi engine came on song at the apex of a hairpin. The back end was out in a second, but an armful of opposite lock and a lift of the right foot bought it back into line.
There is no LSD and no traction control, but the Farboud does have a superbly rigid chassis that combines a spaceframe and welded panels to form a cut-price monocoque. The suspension includes Ohlins race dampers that, combined with a total weight of 2530 pounds full of fuel, provide racecar-like responses, and the break at the rear is always progressive.
Of course, this is an expensive setup and there are doubts whether the finished car will benefit from race-bred dampers and suspension. But the engineers insist the handling, which has taken a year to develop, will follow faithfully in the footsteps of this mightily impressive prototype whatever components are fitted.