With grids full of the rarest and best supercars and hypercars ever constructed, the annual SCD Secret Meet at Donington Park is now regarded by many because the 12 months’s premier automotive fanatic occasion. The standard, amount and sheer exclusivity of the metallic and carbon fibre, on show positively borders on the surreal.
Written by: Angus Frazer, JBR Capital
A blast? An outrage? A shock?
It’s not simple to place your finger on the proper collective noun for the Ferrari F40.
Given the automotive’s interplanetary craft appears and the fabled ferocious thrust of its 3.0-litre twin-turbocharged V8 engine, high-energy phrases that summon up the automotive’s phenomenal efficiency spring most readily to thoughts.
However the phrase that greatest describes the ensemble circumnavigating Donington Park Circuit on the 2022 SCD Secret Meet is surprisingly ever so barely soporific.
A dream of Ferrari F40s sounds proper as a result of, actually, it’s not possible not to have a look at 20 blood-red examples that simply hold coming and coming and coming, muscling their means across the observe, and never really feel tempted to pinch your self to be sure to are literally awake.
The high-speed parade is proof that the SCD workforce has as soon as once more excelled itself. And it’s not simply the F40. All of the Ferrari ‘Massive 5’, these absolute titans of the trendy Maranello period, are on present, with equally jaw-dropping examples of the 288 GTO, F50, Enzo and LaFerrari interspersed amongst the F40s.
SCD member Heath Grey introduced his Ferrari F40 to the occasion. “I at all times wished an F40, I purchased this one 21 years in the past, and it nonetheless excites me each time I drive it. You possibly can really feel completely all the pieces the highway presents coming by the steering wheel, and also you’ve at all times received to have your wits about you too. It’s not like driving a contemporary supercar. You possibly can’t simply put your foot down and depend on an array of digital aids to get you out of bother”, explains Heath.
There may be one side of the F40’s character that Heath feels is far maligned. “There’s a whole lot of speak in regards to the turbo lag with these vehicles, however it’s not as unhealthy as folks say. In case you hold the engine slightly below 3,500rpm, it’ll at all times reply the moment you press the throttle”.
Regardless that the final F40 left the manufacturing line forty years in the past in 1992, it rightly nonetheless merited a spot on the entrance row of the grid of SCD’s hypercar parade, too, albeit in elite Competizione guise. And it was in some phenomenally unique firm alongside a Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR, Porsche 911 GT1, Bugatti EB110 SS, Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren Stirling Moss, Koenigsegg CCXR Version, Porsche Carrera GT, Lamborghini Reventon and Maserati MC12 Versione Corse to call however a couple of.
Derived from the MC12 GT1 racing automotive that received the 2005 FIA GT world endurance championship, simply 13 track-focused MC12 Versione Corse examples had been in-built 2006. So, to see one in motion and listen to the howl of its 755hp naturally aspirated V12 engine is a really uncommon deal with – much more so when it’s the solely white MC12 Versione Corse ever produced.
“This automotive has by no means even been pushed earlier than, and right this moment is the primary time it has gone round a racetrack. It has been sitting in a non-public assortment with all of the spare components for it in glass bins and was nonetheless on the unique tyres”, defined Davide de Giorgi of Girardo & Co, the corporate that lately transacted the sale
of the MC12 to its new proprietor.
Whereas a lot of the supercars and hypercars in motion had been from producers with many years of expertise in constructing ultra-desirable highway vehicles, that was not the case for all. The Dallara identify has been behind a number of the world’s best racing vehicles for the reason that firm was based 40 years in the past, however regardless of its huge expertise, the corporate had by no means created a highway automotive till lately. Enter the Dallara Stradale, which was launched in 2019 and earned a 4.5-star highway check score by Autocar.
The Dallara Stradale is distributed solely within the UK by London-based specialists Joe Macari. “The automotive incorporates a full carbon tub, weighs 800 kilos, has 850 kilos of downforce and is powered by the engine from the Ford Focus RS”, revealed Gross sales Govt Franco Granell. “With its aero bundle and the agility the chassis supplies, it will probably dance rings round some vehicles with twice the facility on the observe”. One had solely to witness the Dallara Stradale within the fingers of Harrison Newey round Donnington to see the reality of that assertion.
McLaren’s new Artura was additionally turning loads of heads, albeit as a static show. “The Artura represents the subsequent era of a supercar for the corporate and makes use of hybrid expertise to boost efficiency”, stated the corporate’s Head of Personal Workplace, Jonathan Maynard. “Given the educated supercar homeowners in attendance, the SCD Secret Meet is the right place to showcase the Artura”.
Maynard acknowledged that, with its hardcore inner combustion engine fanbase, the occasion was one thing of a tricky gig to play for a next-generation electrified supercar. Nonetheless, he was happy with the response the Artura was producing. “Individuals are arising and asking, ‘Why hybrid?’, and that provides us the chance to elucidate how the hybrid system provides to the driving expertise”.
The truth that a producer of the calibre of McLaren selected to exhibit a automotive as vital because the Artura exhibits simply how significantly the business now takes the SCD Secret Meet. Bentley was additionally there, and in addition to displaying a few of its newest highway vehicles, it had one mannequin in motion on the observe that neither love nor cash may purchase.
That automotive was the Bentley Pace 8 that received the Le Mans 24 Hours race in 2003 within the fingers of Rinaldo Capello, Tom Kristensen and Man Smith, with the latter again behind the wheel at Donington.
“The Pace 8 doesn’t get run fairly often, nevertheless it’s essential that it doesn’t find yourself mothballed endlessly in a museum. It’s an actual honour to get to drive it once more. It simply brings again such wonderful reminiscences”, revealed Man. “However I can’t consider that it’s twenty years previous now. I’m fortunate sufficient to nonetheless get to drive fashionable prototype race vehicles, and the Pace 8 nonetheless appears like a contemporary automotive and proper on the tempo”.
Along with nonetheless being deeply impressed by the automotive he drove to victory at Le Mans nearly 20 years in the past, Man was blown away by the occasion itself. “I had no concept what to anticipate. I assumed it could be like a small automotive meet for about 100 folks. After which, after I was coming near the circuit and seeing all of the vehicles and all of the photographers on the roads exterior, it felt like being at a Components One occasion or one thing. It’s simply wonderful. Among the supercars which are listed below are so uncommon, and also you simply don’t get to see them that usually in any respect.”
JBR Capital Founder and Govt Director Darren Selig shared Man’s sentiments: “I believe SCD’s Secret Meet is now the premier fanatics’ occasion within the calendar. The place else are you able to expertise the sight, sound and scent of so many supercars and hypercars being pushed arduous round a observe?”.
For Darren, the spotlight was the prospect to take part within the Ferrari demonstration. “I received to trip within the La Ferrari with Selena Bailey.
I’d by no means been in a single earlier than, and it was attention-grabbing as a result of, in some ways, that automotive is the subsequent iteration of the F50, which continues to be my dream automotive. It was a improbable expertise, and it does make you marvel what on earth SCD will do for subsequent 12 months’s Secret Meet”.
To seek out out, we’ll simply have to attend one other 12 months after which, who is aware of what supercar desires might come once more.
