That much is clear as you wiggle into the tight cockpit. The stripped-out interior is as businesslike as the matte-black paint job: hip-hugging seats with six point harnesses to hold you in good and tight, a Motec instrument pack to keep track of speed, revs, gears, and other vital functions, and bare carbon fiber everywhere. With time and money at a premium, Chrysler has bypassed the showbiz of the concept-car interior to concentrate on proving out the mechanical bits on this prototype, although the prototype's cabin follows the same basic form.
The 6.0-liter V-12--based on the 612-horsepower twin-turbo AMG engine fitted to the tire-frying Mercedes SL65, but with twice the number of turbos pumping up to 2.5 bar boost--booms at a fast idle as Tom O'Dell, who worked on Chrysler's Le Mans-winning Viper GTS-R racers, cinches down the harnesses and snaps the detachable Momo steering wheel into place. Twist the knob on the center console from N to D to engage the first of six ratios available from the British-built double-clutch Riccardo transmission. Right paddle for upshifts, left for down. No clutch pedal means left-foot braking is a cinch. Let's go...
The ME Four-Twelve burbles along Laguna Seca's pit lane with the easy composure of a Camry mooching around the carpark at Wal-Mart. And it feels a bit of a pussycat when you snap the gas pedal out on the track. There's no headbanging shriek and sledgehammer surge like you get when you crack the throttles wide open on an Enzo, just an elastic lunge accompanied by a sonorous sonic boom before the engine quickly runs up to the redline and the transmission soft-shoes automatically into the next gear ratio. It doesn't sound that fast. And it doesn't peel your eyelids back like you think 850 horsepower ought to. But then you suddenly notice you're at the next turn already, and it's time to give the massive 15.0-inch-diameter ceramic composite disc brakes--they're as big as a Ford Focus wheel--a workout.
Dan Knott says his engineers have recorded 2 g under braking during testing. That's about twice the number a regular road car with good brakes will give you, and it feels entirely believable: With six-piston calipers up front and four-piston units at the rear, the ME Four-Twelve just plain stops, straight and true, when you nail that pedal. There's ABS, but the threshold has been set high enough to permit just a hint of lockup before the system intervenes. The steering is light, accurate and doesn't load up through the turns. A little more feel would be nice, though--it's hard to tell exactly what the front tires are doing midway through a turn.
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