All starving, we head for the adequate place to have our breakfast, exquisite Parisian petrolhead style: the Café de l’Esplanade. Click here for Part 1 and Part 2.
Waking up all Paris!
After a warm coffee, some orange juice and a traditional croissant, it’s already time to head for the last spot of the day. It’s another restaurant, even more prestigious: Les Deux Magots.
We pack up and I am for a surprise: it’s now my turn to enjoy a ride in the F40!
I park, lock my car and jump into the passenger seat of the red devil.
The first meters are very surprising for me. I was expecting really stiff suspension, no comfort and a lot of cracks and squeaks from the bare carbon interior, but nothing! The car, even from the passenger seat, seams sharp, agile… and very well dampen. I mean, my Mini with leather seats, and being a city car, is way more stiff on road bumps!
The pilot sees me staring with watery eyes at every detail of the interior. The felt dashboard, the lexan windows, the bare carbon-Kevlar panels, the green glue joints… everything I knew only from the pictures I used to stare for hours as a kid, but now in front of me!
He floors the throttle in second gear. I can’t remember if there was wheel spin, but it took off so brutally that I don’t think there was!
Buried in the bucket seat, I feel like the straight pipes of the twin-turbo V8 are exiting right into my ear drums!
Now deaf, I can’t do anything else than laugh.
“Are you OK? Cause here we go again!”
Intrigued by the number of revs we are taking, I stare at the rev counter. There goes 2000 revs, 3000, 4000, 4500… the same brute force as last time, the same scream from the engine; but a real shock and a question I need to ask:
“Wait! Are you telling me that we are not using the turbos?!”
He smiles, stops at the red light, engages first gear, makes sure to use all the grip available for the launch and stays full throttle. As the engine goes over 4500 rpm, it’s like if a second engine is bolted on to the back of that car!
I remember the only thing that went through my mind: Fernando Alonso saying the word “rocketship”! Hahaha
Paul Syren
