David Byrne might have sung about it in Talking Heads' most famous and successful single but I am, quite literally, on the road to nowhere. Outside Dubai, a road I dare not describe the location of – for fear of encouraging drag-racing shenanigans after dark – heads in one direction for approximately 25 kilometres, after which it abruptly runs out. That's right, the road actually stops, with nothing beyond it except sand and lots of it. No junctions, no slip roads – just a couple of barely decipherable signs that alert anyone paying attention that the tarmac is, within a few metres, about to run out.
Fortunately for me, I’ve been here before, so I know what to expect and today the car I’m driving is perfectly suited to the road surface: long, flat, fast. But the wind is whipping up the desert sand and blowing it in only one direction. Within a few minutes of me parking this incredible automobile on this arrow-straight section of UAE blacktop, the severe gusts have blown sand all over the road, yet it’s forming an almost perfect circle around this rarest, most special of automobiles.
Like some supernatural force is manipulating the visuals into a sort of abrasive ground halo, the sand circle is getting larger and more symmetrical with every passing second, but I’m starting to fear for the car’s paintwork. This is sandblasting in its most natural form and, while it might be good for cleaning the rot from a rusting chassis or the occasional building facade, it can’t be beneficial for this thing, surely? But it seems entirely fitting for this machine – a 21st-century supercar (no, make that “hypercar”) that the natural elements are bent into some other shape by its force even when it’s at a standstill.
From outside it looks malevolent in its black paint job, with a huge snout, short overhangs and no-nonsense approach to aerodynamics. Inside is a well-crafted (if visually uninspiring) cabin with up-to-the-minute Android-based connectivity and a sound system that shakes the fillings from your teeth. The environment is friendlier than the car’s looks would suggest but there’s no getting away from it: this is a performance car operating on the outer edge of the envelope.
It’s called the Zenvo ST1 and you really should remember its name. Because, despite its somewhat protracted gestation, on the basis of even my first few minutes behind its steering wheel, I know this is a car that’s here to stay. Too much time, money and creative and intelligent thought have gone into Zenvo for it to merely become yet another almost-ran.
In these massively legislated times, we simply cannot accommodate any more car companies that promise much and deliver little or nothing. In the 1960s, 70s and 80s, names such as ISO, Monteverdi, Bitter, Facel and a host of others that said they’d achieve so much, yet had neither the resources nor the wherewithal to make things work, rose and sank without trace – sometimes in a matter of months. They had the designs, the drive, the dreams. These days, though, too much is at stake. These days you simply cannot fantasise – you need to invest untold millions to make anything worth considering.
Zenvo’s founder, Troels Vollertsen, had a vision of the perfect hypercar, but he also had the money (thanks to a financial backer) and the drive to turn it into a reality. The resultant company, its name an amalgam of bits of his surname (Tsen-Vo), might not be giving Ferrari, Lamborghini or even Bugatti sleepless nights but, given the ferocity of the performance of his car, perhaps it should be. Haven’t we been here a million times before, though? Haven’t we seen a great many contenders to the hypercar throne, only to be let down by half-baked concepts that promised much, but ended up delivering next to nothing?
Zenvo, despite a name that perhaps fails to deliver any initial magical hit of adrenaline, is no one-hit wonder. It’s a company that’s been here for a while now, yet one that’s kept its powder dry inasmuch as it’s made no secret of its intentions, but has simply gone about its business in the most low-key terms possible. Perhaps if it had originated in Italy, Germany, or even the UK or US, Zenvo might have been more warmly received.
The fact is, however, that its native Denmark might as well be Timbuktu when it comes to conceiving, designing and building a hypercar that takes the fight to the establishment and people are having a hard time grasping this as a reality. Yet here I am, being pummeled by physical forces in an automobile that I have not experienced since I drove a Bugatti Veyron. The sensations I soak up, the Darth Vader noises I hear from that huge engine behind my head and the sheer uninterrupted pace of the thing tell me this is no pretender.
Motaz Abu-Hijleh, the man who runs Dubai’s Parc Fermé, Zenvo’s approved dealership, has been intimately involved with the company for quite some time and, as a former Emirates aviation engineer, it’s obvious that the ST1’s physical make-up is what does it for him. During my drive (this is the first time anyone from the media has driven a production version), Abu-Hiljeh tells me this car is “build number three”.
You can’t believe everything you read on the internet – you don’t need the likes of me to tell you that – and Zenvo’s entry on Wikipedia makes out that 15 have been built, and pretty much gives the impression that it’s “game over” for the company. Abu-Hijleh says that’s absolute nonsense, but that it’s understandable there will be some level of confusion about the company because it seems to have been in the business for far longer than it actually has. “It’s taken approximately eight years to get to where we are now,” he says, “and that fact that this car is only the third production version [it was built in late 2014] tells you a lot. It shows that the company wasn’t prepared to build customer cars before it was truly ready.”
During my drive, which lasts five hours or so, the overriding impression I get is that this is a properly resolved car. There are no squeaks, creaks or other extraneous noises that shouldn’t be present. It’s completely refined when you want it to be yet brutal and ballistic when you call for a pure hit of otherworldly power and speed. And it feels strong, unburstable, like the entire thing is hewn from stone.
It’s actually formed from carbon fibre, evidenced when you open either of its doors and see the preposterously wide sills. In fact the entire car is wide, measuring just over two metres across (before you even consider the protruding mirrors); it’s 4.66m long, 1.2m high and weighs 1,688kg – something that initially surprises me, given its carbon construction. But it’s the body panels that are crafted from the stuff, while the chassis is made using a lightweight steel and aluminium monocoque with steel frames front and rear.
To propel that mass, drive is sent via a seven-speed clutch-less manual gearbox to the rear wheels from a bespoke 6.8-litre, mid-mounted V8 that’s both turbo- and supercharged for more immediate throttle response. And when that hand-built lump really comes on song in Race mode, a colossal 1,104hp is at the disposal of your right foot, along with a frankly mental 1,430Nm of torque. These are intimidating numbers on any car, especially one that’s rear-wheel drive, and that’s part of the Zenvo’s appeal: it’s not a car for wimps.
This is a machine that might be usable around town (thanks to its hydraulic suspension lift that enables it to clear speed bumps that might have other cars scurrying in the opposite direction) but grab it by the scruff of the neck, get on the gas and it will thrill and terrify in equal measure – it’s a car that could potentially take years to master and that’s a good thing. After all, any car that has to be electronically limited to 375kph shouldn’t bare its soul on first acquaintance – where’s the fun in that?
As my confidence builds, I take opportunities to stretch the Zenvo’s extremely long legs. In normal “Wet” mode, the power is limited to 650hp, which in itself is a huge number, but it’s entirely usable. Select Sport and another 200 horses gallop in, while Race liberates the whole stable. Yet whenever I floor the throttle in Race and the ST1 demolishes whatever road it’s on at the time, that power never feels like it’s beyond control thanks to some very clever yet unobtrusive electronic systems management.
Abu-Hijleh says it’s been a labour of love to get those systems to work for the driver while making him or her feel like they’re in complete control and, from what I experience through the seat of my pants, I can say it’s a job well done. It can corner, too, taking even extremely tight bends at speed with flat, precise manoeuvres that exhibit no body roll nor any snappy oversteer characteristics. Later, when Abu-Hiljeh takes over, he ably demonstrates the ST1’s more leery tendencies and, as a part-time competition racer, he knows exactly what he’s doing as the great Dane rearranges my internal organs.
I step out at the end of a long, hot and extremely dusty day – with sand crunching between my teeth and a huge smile on my face. What I had expected to be a real bag of nails has turned out to be nothing of the sort – on the contrary, the ST1 is an incredibly well-built and engineered car that’s crafted by obsessives who are leaving no stone unturned in their pursuit of the perfect driver’s car. That dedication shines through in every aspect of this mind-blowing machine and, if you want something nobody else has, perhaps you need look no further. Four-wheeled sensory overload doesn’t come much more full on than this.
• The Zenvo ST1 is available in the Middle East through www.parcferme.me, and pricing starts at Dh3.77 million.
motoring@thenational.ae
