Today, I ended up driving one of these

mrbennybennett · Post by **mrbennybennett** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 10:06 am

Lucky swine

Take it he isnt short of a bob or 2??

The_Rossatron · Post by **The_Rossatron** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 10:25 am

He's taking it up there at the weekend for some motor fair.

Don't think he's struggling or anything! Just had it's first service, and we thought Murrays was pricey: £20k

kenny · Post by **kenny** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 10:35 am

Tom · Post by **Tom** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 10:38 am

pah..... boring foreign rubbish.......

(lucky fcuk....)

Rich H · Post by **Rich H** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 10:40 am

£20K for a service FFS! I hope they kissed him first! What did they do rebuild the engine?!?

How long did it take, their hourly rate must be a work of art....

Rich H · Post by **Rich H** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 10:51 am

Got it, H*nda conversion.

Tom · Post by **Tom** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 10:55 am

RICHARDHUMBLE wrote:Got it, H*nda conversion.

The_Rossatron · Post by **The_Rossatron** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 11:02 am

RICHARDHUMBLE wrote:£20K for a service FFS! I hope they kissed him first! What did they do rebuild the engine?!?

How long did it take, their hourly rate must be a work of art....

They come pick it up in a covered truck and take it back to Modena!

Rich H · Post by **Rich H** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 11:13 am

Fair enough.... but still, that's one hell of a bill! Bet it comes back clean and like new though. Calling Hethel.....

Bada Bing! · Post by **Bada Bing!** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 11:15 am

The_Rossatron wrote:
RICHARDHUMBLE wrote:£20K for a service FFS! I hope they kissed him first! What did they do rebuild the engine?!?

How long did it take, their hourly rate must be a work of art....
They come pick it up in a covered truck and take it back to Modena!

p.s. You lucky f**king b@stard. People would pay £5k easily for that privelege. It's £1500 to hire a 360 for the day!

Post by ed » Mon Jul 17, 2006 12:48 pm

nicely done matey.

Did he take you out for a proper blast afterwards??

must have been awesome!

Post by **simon** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 12:50 pm

ed wrote:Did he take you out for a proper blast afterwards??

IRTA "you drove like a pussy"

:lol:

The_Rossatron · Post by **The_Rossatron** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 1:30 pm

Just realised I haven't posted any decent details! I wish i had the literary skills to do it justice

Took a good look around the beast before we went out, had a look under the "bonnet" where the entire rear clam shell hinges up like an F40 revealling that everything was in fact made of carbon fibre! Clams, cam covers, a pod on either side to keep some small luggage in etc etc.

Clam folded back down and fastened the leather straps to keep it there and jumped into the cabin in an Elise-like fashion though not quite so tricky! Everything feels like it should on a £380k car! And again in a very Elise like fashion the carbon fibre/kevlar chassis is exposed around the wide sills and other places which looks cool as fcuk! Anything that wasn't carbon fibre was either aluminium, leather, alcantara or glass! The glass roof was particularly nice making the cabin feel slightly bigger than it was, I adjusted the rear view mirror (probably made of carbon fibre:) ) though there wasn't much to be seen out of it and the wing mirrors also showed worringly little! I adjusted the comfy huggy sport seat, I'd heard that they were fixed at the factory tailoured to the individual - thankfully not! Everything felt very well built nothing was hanging off or loose. It seems like a place you could spend a lot of time in comfortabley

The car can be started on the key or via a very cool red start button mounted on top of the gearstick - I of course chose the latter just to be cool

Another button I decided to stay well away from was marked "ASR OFF"

So I press the button and the V12 awakens and growls and the Zonda makes various whirs and noises like some robot monster getting out of bed - must be what ignition felt like on the discovery launch. We let it idle for a bit to let it get back up to temp

Pushed down the very heavy clutch, man there was some spring on that thing! Gareth showed me where reverse was and I cautiously eased the car back - was petrified of kerbing the wheels especially as the back sticks out a good few inches furhter than the front! By this point I was noticing my slippy shoes were slipping off the clutch pedal, all the pedals pivoted from the floor so it took a bit of foot adjustment and it wasn't too bad once I'd gotten used to it.

Slotted it into first gear, the change is as you'd expect pretty perfect, took off very carefully taking care not to stuff it into my wee bro's 106

pootled off at 30 until we got out onto the short 60 limit section of Frogston road where I sampled a small number of the 600+ horses on tap. Masses of torque makes pulling away very effortless gave a good hint of what was to come, the ride was brilliant very lotus like but felt a lot more planted at any speed, it felt like there was a lot of grip there and I suppose there should have been from those 345/30/19s!

Man the thing flies in any gear at any speed. 6th on the motorway felt like first in my car! And the noise was intoxicating under throttle, the best thing I've ever heard.

I thought the Elise drew attention but in the Zonda EVERYONE looks at you (well the car) people were turning around in the cars in front and pedestrians were literally stopping in the street to stare.

A few blasts up and down the bypass was enough to tell me that this will be the fastest and coolest thing I'll ever drive. You could wind it up and slow it down just as quickly and it felt very safe in doing so. Oh and I saw a ruby red S1 going the other way

if that was anyone here!

Gareth thought he might as well fill it up while we were out so we headed for the Esso at lothian burn and again turned a lot of heads
£50 of super unleaded later and I reluctantly headed back.

Overall the car felt very much in that kind of Elise/Noble veign - but on mix of crack cocaine and steroids. Corners are well and good

but this kind of straight line grunt is just awesome

Though of course the Zonda does both well - makes me want a Noble!

A true supercar and the epitmy of cool - but the coolest thing about this Zonda S - I drove it

Gareth enjoys sharing this amazing toy with likeminded interested people - he's also a good friend of Horacio Pagani, so made for some pretty interesting chat and ultimately was just a really sound guy for trusting me with his pride and joy especially one of this calibre - I can't thank him enough!

Gareth · Post by **Gareth** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 3:04 pm

What does he do for a living?

The_Rossatron · Post by **The_Rossatron** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 3:08 pm

Gareth wrote:What does he do for a living?

Works in McDonalds

Nah he's involved with Gas and oil companies.