Noble has peeled the wraps off its next production car, a carbon fibre beauty called the M600.
It gets a twin-turbo 4.4-litre V8 engine, supplied by Yamaha, developing 650bhp and 602lb.ft. And because it's clothed entirely of carbon fibre, it weighs a little over a tonne - about 1,200kg.
That equals a 3.5-second sprint to 62mph and a 225mph top speed. Performance through light(ish) weight, as a fellow British manufacturer might say. The 0-120mph lesser benchmark is demolished in 8.9 seconds.
Taking a leaf from the BMW M5's book, the Noble doesn't give drivers all its power off the bat. Three modes determine what's available: Road, Track and Race settings provide 450-, 550-, and 650bhp respectively.
These 'Adaptive Performance Control' settings alter the suspension management too, for the sake of comfort; the M600 is the race car you can relax in.
Noble promises the fit and finish of the M600 is way beyond anything the company has ever done before, and by the look of the pictures we can believe it. Potential customers - of whom there are many, says Noble - will get to have a proper poke about the car over the coming weeks.
And at £200,000 this is a car with some serious rivals, including, of course, the
Porsche 911 Turbo and the
Ferrari 458 Italia.
Hopefully we'll be behind the wheel shortly, so we'll let you know what we think.
Mark Nichol - 28 Jan 2011