American firm DDR has launched what it calls 'an affordable supercar' and it has more than a passing similarity to the McLaren F1.

With up-swing doors like the McLaren, the DDR does not have a central driving seat and instead sticks with two conventional pews. The rest of the cabin is functional and comes with Sparco race seats and harnesses.

The glassfibre body sits on a steel tube spaceframe chassis and it's up to the customer to construct the car. This method gets around costly type approval regulations in the USA in the same way the reborn Noble M400 does now that it's built by Rossion in the US.

Power for the DDR come from four-cylinder engines from either Honda or Toyota - or a much more impressive Chevrolet Corvette V8 motor. DDR has not confirmed any performance details for the SP4 or SP8, but the package for the SP4 costs $19,950 and the SP8 comes in at $19,995 (that's less than £12,400 in both cases).

Alisdair Suttie - 20 Jul 2011