Lotus father Colin Chapman’s idea of ‘adding lightness’ still resonates within the industry nowadays, and while you can still buy a new car that stands true to his original vision, it has received mad twists over the years.
Donkeroort, a Dutch company, originally started (in 1978 by a man called Joop) making cars very similar to the Lotus / Caterham Seven, but has shifted its direction somewhat in the meantime. Its latest creation, the D8 GTO, is truly mad, not only in the way it looks, but also by the numbers that back it up.
It is, essentially, a futuristic-looking Seven with an Audi 2.5-liter five-cylinder turbo heart and a total weight of sub 700 kilos; the XCAR video review posted below is a fine presentation of it, and it makes you appreciate the work done by Donkervoort from its humble beginnings to the mutated state we find it in today – we mean that with the best possible connotations.