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Zwart Car

After heading out to work on the Scottish oilfields, Klaas Zwart came up with novel inventions and became a millionaire many times over from the patents. With the Ascari brand, spearheaded by the elegant KZ1, he has struck gold again.

When the Anglicised Dutchman took over the company built relatively agricultural supercars in an outdated broken greenhouse in Devon, which is a rustic county in the corner of England. It was hardly a venture to worry Maranello.

Now the firm has a state-of-the-art glass-fronted workshop at the heart of Britain’s thriving motorsport industry in Banbury, a test track in Spain that is so good other manufacturers use it for press launches and one of the most advanced sportscars on sale at the moment. Ascari has come a long way and its star is still rising with the £235,000 KZ1.

The press car isn’t even ready yet, in fact there is only one road car in existence, so I was handed the rather tatty key to Klaas’ personal transport upon arrival at the marque’s Banbury base. Confronted with the car itself, though, starting it up with a Ford transit key suddenly didn’t matter.

Most modern supercars have settled on imposing looks and they’ve sacrificed the flowing, gorgeous lines of yesteryear.

Everything is carbon-fiber, from the monocoque that one man can lift to the swooping panels that are manufactured in sufficiently low numbers not to worry about simplicity of mass production. Every sensuous surface flows towards that squat rear end and there is an organic, rounded feel to the KZ1. The Ferrari Enzo and Lamborghini Murcielago are both beautiful cars in their own way, but they’re angular supermodels next to the classic curvaceous film siren with the J-Lo rear that is the KZ1.

There are mass production components, including Peugeot headlights and a Vauxhall VX220 starter button in the mix and those wing mirrors look like they came off something far cheaper and nastier. But the money saved there has gone into race bred suspension, brakes, a beast of an engine, more than three years of development and a luxury interior.

The KZ1 was never intended to be a pared down racer, despite its final kerb weight of 2810lb. That is the role of the 2425lb KZ1R that will soon be available in any range of trim from trackday to full FIA race use. This road car is a Grand Tourer with comfy, figure-hugging Connolly leather and Alcantara seats, a fully decked out interior and a set-up geared as much for comfort through town as a committed assault on the apex.

If anything this car felt a little soft on the twisted, broken up roads that make up the local countryside test route for Ascari, Aston Martin and a few others. Under heavy braking the car pitched forward, ever so slightly, and the tread blocks on the 235/35R19 Pirelli P Zeros shifted uncomfortably, but it never locked up and was certainly more forgiving than the razor’s edge supercars of days gone by.

The Ascari is set-up for understeer, which may not satisfy a Le Mans driver, but will keep most drivers safe from harm. You can find the limit if you want, using the pure excess of power to provide the adrenaline higher up the rev range - beyond 4000rpm when the engine stripped from a BMW E39 M5 reaches for the skies and smokes those rear wheels.

It was easy to put the hammer down and soak up that seductive V8 throb as the car just takes off, acquiring speed at an alarming rate but not spinning the wheels thanks to soft rear suspension that transmits the power to the road calmly and efficiently without the need for electronic interference. Into the corners the steering is telepathic, the car is settled and doesn’t spring surprises.

So while some other supercars whirl down the road with all the frantic kinetic energy of a Tasmanian Devil, with a driver desperately holding on to the bucking bronco, the Ascari simply claws in the road effortlessly and with relatively little drama.

This is no common or garden Ferrari, and that alone will be worth the price of admission to this exclusive club to the uber rich car nut out there. Only 50 will ever be made, so get on the phone right now if you want one.

And those that can afford those kind of luxurious decision generally don’t have the talent to control a racing car in any case So the civilised manner of the KZ1 should ensure a sell-out.

The body has all the composure one would expect from a carbon-fiber racing tub working in conjunction with a custom-made race-oriented suspension kit involving unequal length wishbones, coil-over dampers and anti-roll bars.

Major ruts in the road thump through the whole cabin, but the KZ1 can still soak up most of Britain’s disastrous roads and there’s no savage sting in the tail, the rear end simply didn’t threaten to overtake the front at any point. It could even handle some of Russia’s tougher rods, while owners of Porsche Carrera GTs and Enzos have had to order raised suspensions when imported.

This is not a car that intends to put the fear of God into its owner, it’s a new breed of supercar in touch with its feminine side.

Considering M5 engine, tuned in house at Banbury and clearly visible, Ferrari style through the rear window, delivers 500bhp through the rear wheels, that’s no mean feat. The torque curve is gentle and progressive low down the rev range, saving the full lunacy for that band between 4000-7000rpm that its owners will visit only when they’re in the mood for dancing with the devil.

You don’t need to drive 200mph, which is where this beast runs out of steam incidentally, to appreciate the sonorous tone of that deep breathing engine. The 4941cc M62 powerplant was, in its prime, the driving force for the fastest sedan on the planet, and some serious tweaking was never going to worry the engine block.

The end result is a car knocking out 500bhp and 368lb ft of torque that races to 60mph in 3.8s, to 100mph in 8.3s and then all the way to 200 as with all good modern hypercars. In fact the chassis could handle more and a 600bhp KZ1-based special edition would still feel more solid than the Enzo under hard acceleration.

It will stop pretty much as fast, too, thanks to AP Racing six-pot calipers on the front and four-pots on the rear clamping on to drilled and ventilated discs. This is the only place the car wobbled even slightly, but with breaking done well before the corner, this car can take the entry, apex and exit on the throttle.

Of course Oxfordshire’s public roads weren’t really the right place to extend the limits of the KZ1’s cornering and retardation. That will have to wait for a later date, and a trip to the track in Ronda, near Marbella, to put the 520bhp KZ1R. through its paces. After this small appetiser, I am openly dribbling in anticipation of the main course.

The steering feels alive from the moment you turn the key and the ease of movement ease of movement, with the car jinking in response to the slightest movement at speed. It’s not nervous, thanks to the natural tendency to push wide at the first sign of trouble, but it’s still go-kart instant and it’s a buzz that’s unlikely to age fast. If you want your KZ1 more tail happy than Hugh Hefner, though, you can order that too and they’ll set it up to break sideways at the first whiff of a corner.

And the exhaust note is a low, brutal, traditional V8 noise barely muffled by the carbon bodywork and minimal insulation. At town speeds its low and lazy, burbling away contentedly, but in the upper reaches of its performance envelope it’s a whole new animal, gnashing mechanical teeth as it howls down the road. It’s not quite as sexy as Lamborghini’s V12 Murcielago, which can be had for similar money, but it’s just as dramatic in its own right and the Ascari is a far more useable tool.

The clutch, despite a high bite point that wasn’t to my liking, was light and easy and the six-speed box is the same one as you’ll find in a Koenigsegg or Zonda, so it’s simplicity itself. Even though it needs to cope with such extreme power, this clutch is about as savage as an assault with a conditioned feather.

It will mooch through town happy as your average saloon and reversing and tight manoeuvres, traumatic experiences in almost every other hypercar of this ilk, become second nature in no time. The KZ1 is only 20cm shorter and narrower than the Murcielago, but feels like a rapier next to a broadsword at parking speeds and those dimensions make the world of difference when facing oncoming traffic.

Bar a serious blind spot when the car lies at 45 degrees to the junction, necessitating neck craning or mirror adjustment to avoid pulling out in front of trucks, it’s near perfect. The KZ1 is a genuine go anywhere supercar.

Having experienced the expensive and painful noise of a Porsche 911 and Ferrari’s splitters scraping on kerbs and speed humps, I tend to look at a minor ditch as the equivalent of climbing Everest for most supercars and pull in to such obstacles at a snail’s pace. Ascari’s Chris Burton impatiently waved me forward until I realised the value of the extra ground clearance under the car.

The KZ1, therefore, joins the SLR as one of the few cars in the class that could genuinely serve as a daily driver. And it might even outdo the best that McLaren and Mercedes could manage between them, no mean feat for the new kid on the block. Zwart apparently has mastered the black art of striking gold.

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Designed and developed by Jim Tebbs.