► The underdog supercar
► Takes #19 on our list
► Ford V6 sounds unreal
You look the M12 over, clock details such as the vast full-width rear wing on its (adjustable) aluminium struts, the low-as-a-lizard ride height and decide it’s just another recalcitrant, board-stiff track car that makes about as much sense on the road as caravanning. Climb in though and you’re met by an interior that, while dubious in some areas – seats with almost horizontal backs, an awkward pedal offset and some museum-ready Ford switchgear – is more accommodating than the average bare-metal track-car cockpit, with lashings of leather, air-con and some niceties such as windows that go up and down. Perhaps this is a road car after all.
Open the taps and you’ll mistake it for a Mazda rotary on open exhausts
Fire up the turbocharged Ford V6, take a few miles to warm the brakes and the Getrag gearbox and, with the first decent stretch of road you can lay your hands on, the Noble’s brilliance hits hard. From an unlikely set of raw ingredients – some lengths of steel, a few sheets of fibreglass, a Ford V6 and a workshop in Leeds – Lee Noble’s team employed a kind of automotive alchemy to deliver a car that, chameleon-like, works wherever you take it. On the road its miraculous suspension (which does without anti-roll bars) is as pliant and yielding as it is composed and communicative on a circuit. The fuzz-free brakes and feelsome, direct steering are virtues in both environments. And while the V6’s party trick is its 350bhp top-end, which is delivered with a spine-tingling blare that sounds for all the world like a racing Mazda rotary on open exhausts, it’s also tractable and civilised in stop-start M25 traffic.
Interested? M12 values run from just £22k (2.5-litre, 5-speed ’box) to around £35k for a very tidy 3R (3.0-litre engine, 6 speeds). Make specialists Plans (plansperformance.com) your first port of call.
Produced: 2000-2008
Price at launch: £49,950
Value now: £35,000
Engine: 2968cc turbocharged V6, 352bhp @ 6200rpm, 350lb ft @ 3500rpm:
Performance: 3.7sec 0-62mph, 170mph