What happened in MOTOR 18 years ago? We got sideways in the $200k one-tonne Noble M400

Noble Piece Prize

Twin-turbo V6, almost 320kW, rear-wheel drive and just 1000kg. This is the supercar-crushing Noble M400 and it's driftingly good fun

Flat in fourth gear, there’s a lunatic pedestrian in the distance. He’s standing on the inside of the corner, circling his arms at me like a windmill. Faster? OK.

This feature was first published in MOTOR magazine's January 2005 issue

Into the braking zone, lift off the accelerator and a pair of blow-off valves choofle and sneeze 12psi of boost an arm-span from my ear, while a super hard stamp on the brakes sinks the nose into the track. The shifter slots into third, as the large discs savagely scrub 100 kays off the 200km/h the silver coupe had just seen.

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With brake pressure tapering off, I tip the Noble into the corner and a quick tug on the wheel unsettles the rear end. It quickly swings its bum out to a 45 degree angle as its wide rear tyres try to overtake the fronts. Squeeze on the power and the response is almost instant, lighting up the rear tyres as opposite lock is gracefully and calmly wound on – and it stays there for seconds. Rather than the steering, remarkably, it’s the throttle that controls the Noble’s slip angle, with the turbine-like engine right in the meat of its muscle.

It feels so close to spinning, but the more it slides, the more steering lock winds on and the more the throttle pedal eases on and off, as the rear tyres are ablaze in a fury of smoke and thrashing V6. The Noble drifts through the corner like the star of some crazed Japanese drifting DVD, perfectly balanced, barely any touch of body roll, and the ease of control of a garage door remote. As it straightens up, there’s a haze of white smoke in the mirrors – what looks like around $50 in vaporised R-compound Pirellis – and the crazy guy is holding his thumb in the air. Bramley got the photo he wanted.

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This is the Noble M400, an English supercar set to stir up the established performance icons. It runs a mid-mounted twin-turbo 3.0-litre V6 producing 317kW, but it’s not about the engine. It has track compound Pirellis, but it’s not about the tyres. It’s not even about the fact Noble has flown us to the Bruntingthorpe track, about three hours north of London, to thrash its new $200,000 supercar that’s destined for Australia.

Nope, it’s about the wonderful chassis, a mid-engined, rear-wheel drive, tight two-seat steel spaceframe with bonded and riveted alloy panels, double wishbone suspension and a full integrated roll cage with the rigidity of a cadaver that makes the Noble so immensely agile.

It’s all down to the evolution of the vehicle Lee Noble started with, the 2.5-litre turbo M10, which then progressed to the M12. The more street-friendly GTO 3R version of which has just landed in Australia with 263kW, 0-100km/h in 3.7 seconds and one of the best chassis ever to be built.

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The M400 is the harder, track-focused version with signature side scoops to feed the engine, black end plates on the rear wing and a rear diffuser. Like the M12, its chassis is built by a South African company who also makes Cobra replicas, taking about eight weeks to construct. The chassis arrives at Noble’s workshop complete with the panels, brakes and suspension, interior, dash, seats and gauges already plugged in, ready for Noble’s engine and ancillaries.

Over just one week and about 70 man hours, Noble then fits the running gear, starting with a Ford Mondeo engine. Yep, a plain old 3.0-litre V6 arrives from America, but with Noble-spec forged pistons that lower the compression ratio. Slung in behind the driver, the V6 has a turbo hung off each bank, a single intercooler at the rear, and more internal mods over the regular M12: wilder cams, larger turbos with 0.15 bar (2psi) more boost, taking it up to 0.85 bar (12psi), plus an oil cooler, sump baffles and a sharper shifter in the Getrag six-speed gearbox.

Noble’s also lopped 20kg from the M12’s weight by offering air-conditioning as an extra cost-option on the M400, emphasising that this model is aimed more for the track than the road. The coil-over double wishbone suspension is stiffer, and the M400 runs race track compound, super tacky Pirelli P Zero Corsas.

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Make no mistake, this is a kit car, and the swoopy body styling with gaudy rear wing was created from Lee Noble’s mind, not from a computer. But after five years of Noble build, the quality is pretty good.

The interior reflects the car’s philosophy: clean, simple and with minimal distractions. The bank of basic gauges and wrap-around Sparco seats are in line with the lack of traction or stability control. There is a Mondeo wiper/indicator stalk whose shroud didn’t fit as neatly as it could on our car, but that was the only build quality issue. Simple and pure, there isn’t even ABS – not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Combine the sticky Pirellis with 330mm rotors (30mm thick at the front, 28mm rear) and four-piston calipers, and the 1060kg weight of the M400 is blessed with immense braking power. In fact, parallels are easy to draw to a famous German marque, at least in performance and handling. But while a 911 driver gets all the frills, the Noble needs none of them because it’s a basic car done well: stiff chassis, great suspension, big brakes, a purposeful interior and a superb engine.

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Jab the metal starter button and the V6 fires into life, the engine is smooth and the clutch action is docile. Jam the throttle open though, and from 3500rpm the Garretts spool up, and this incredible thing happens: it actually sounds good. It’s a mixture of throaty V6, and the choof and chortle of the turbos and rushing air.

And it’s fast. Try 0-100km/h in 3.5 seconds, though Noble’s test driver admitted it’s a difficult time to match. Balancing clutch slip to wheelspin to boost is a tricky task, but get it right and it’ll crush even a 911 Turbo, with a massive mid-range of punch and power that shrieks to 7200rpm. That’s a fat spread of grunt almost 4000rpm wide, or 60 percent of its range from idle to limiter.

Its power-to-weight ratio of 3.3kg/kW is better than any Porsche bar the Carrera GT, it beats the Murciélago, and is close to an Enzo. Which makes it not only a bullet in a straight line with a 12-second quarter-mile time, but fast anywhere, everywhere. It regularly beats Porsches and Ferraris and BMWs in handling tests, but does it all while offering a stupidly compliant ride that isn’t at all befitting of a supercar.

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Yep, the insanely quick Noble M400 is actually really easy to drive, surprising given Noble says it’s really a race car for the road. It’s torquey, the steering is light, vision is OK, and the seats are grippy. If anything, it’s the air-conditioning that’s most sorely missed: with the black carpeting and twin-turbo engine nestled behind the seats, it was verging on sauna conditions during our mid-summer drive.

Power is relentless, and with 0.85 bar on the boost dial, the M400 pulls all the way to redline, while the road-friendly 3R version starts tailing off around 6000rpm. It’s really steaming in the last 1200rpm of the rev range, with the quarter-mile in 12s, and fifth gear maxing out around 295km/h!

The Noble has scintillating acceleration, incredible levels of grip, perfect balance and awesome braking power, with impressive build quality – for a kit car. The fact it’s comparable to the exotics from Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborghini and that it’s cheaper than all of them, reinforces just what a serious performance machine the Noble is. Yes, the M400 is a hard-core, track focused animal, but it’s easy to drive, docile and comfortable. The Noble is the enthusiast’s supercar and it set to put a rocket up the rear of the established stars.

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