With grids filled with the rarest and best supercars and hypercars ever constructed, the annual SCD Secret Meet at Donington Park is now regarded by many because the yr’s premier automotive fanatic occasion. The standard, amount and sheer exclusivity of the metallic and carbon fibre, on show positively borders on the surreal.

Written by: Angus Frazer, JBR Capital

A blast? An outrage? A shock?
It’s not simple to place your finger on the proper collective noun for the Ferrari F40. 

Given the automobile’s interplanetary craft appears to be like and the fabled ferocious thrust of its 3.0-litre twin-turbocharged V8 engine, high-energy phrases that summon up the automobile’s phenomenal efficiency spring most readily to thoughts.
However the phrase that finest describes the ensemble circumnavigating Donington Park Circuit on the 2022 SCD Secret Meet is surprisingly ever so barely soporific.

A dream of Ferrari F40s sounds proper as a result of, actually, it’s inconceivable not to have a look at 20 blood-red examples that simply hold coming and coming and coming, muscling their method across the observe, and never really feel tempted to pinch your self to ensure you are literally awake. 

The high-speed parade is proof that the SCD crew has as soon as once more excelled itself. And it’s not simply the F40. All of the Ferrari ‘Massive 5’, these absolute titans of the trendy Maranello period, are on present, with equally jaw-dropping examples of the 288 GTO, F50, Enzo and LaFerrari interspersed amongst the F40s.

SCD member Heath Grey introduced his Ferrari F40 to the occasion. “I at all times needed an F40, I purchased this one 21 years in the past, and it nonetheless excites me each time I drive it. You possibly can really feel completely all the things the street affords coming by the steering wheel, and also you’ve at all times obtained to have your wits about you too. It’s not like driving a contemporary supercar. You possibly can’t simply put your foot down and depend on an array of digital aids to get you out of hassle”, explains Heath.

There’s one facet of the F40’s character that Heath feels is way maligned. “There’s a number of discuss concerning the turbo lag with these automobiles, however it isn’t as dangerous as folks say. If you happen to hold the engine slightly below 3,500rpm, it should at all times reply the moment you press the throttle”.

Although the final F40 left the manufacturing line forty years in the past in 1992, it rightly nonetheless merited a spot on the entrance row of the grid of SCD’s hypercar parade, too, albeit in elite Competizione guise. And it was in some phenomenally unique firm alongside a Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR, Porsche 911 GT1, Bugatti EB110 SS, Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren Stirling Moss, Koenigsegg CCXR Version, Porsche Carrera GT, Lamborghini Reventon and Maserati MC12 Versione Corse to call however a number of. 

Derived from the MC12 GT1 racing automobile that received the 2005 FIA GT world endurance championship, simply 13 track-focused MC12 Versione Corse examples had been inbuilt 2006. So, to see one in motion and listen to the howl of its 755hp naturally aspirated V12 engine is a really uncommon deal with – much more so when it’s the solely white MC12 Versione Corse ever produced. 

“This automobile has by no means even been pushed earlier than, and right now is the primary time it has gone round a racetrack. It has been sitting in a personal assortment with all of the spare components for it in glass packing containers and was nonetheless on the unique tyres”, defined Davide de Giorgi of Girardo & Co, the corporate that just lately transacted the sale
of the MC12 to its new proprietor. 

Whereas a lot of the supercars and hypercars in motion had been from producers with many years of expertise in constructing ultra-desirable street automobiles, that was not the case for all. The Dallara title has been behind a number of the world’s best racing automobiles because the firm was based 40 years in the past, however regardless of its huge expertise, the corporate had by no means created a street automobile till just lately. Enter the Dallara Stradale, which was launched in 2019 and earned a 4.5-star street take a look at ranking by Autocar.

The Dallara Stradale is distributed solely within the UK by London-based specialists Joe Macari. “The automobile encompasses a full carbon tub, weighs 800 kilos, has 850 kilos of downforce and is powered by the engine from the Ford Focus RS”, revealed Gross sales Government Franco Granell. “With its aero package deal and the agility the chassis supplies, it will possibly dance rings round some automobiles with twice the ability on the observe”. One had solely to witness the Dallara Stradale within the fingers of Harrison Newey round Donnington to see the reality of that assertion.

McLaren’s new Artura was additionally turning loads of heads, albeit as a static show. “The Artura represents the following technology of a supercar for the corporate and makes use of hybrid know-how to boost efficiency”, mentioned the corporate’s Head of Personal Workplace, Jonathan Maynard.  “Given the educated supercar homeowners in attendance, the SCD Secret Meet is the right place to showcase the Artura”.

Maynard acknowledged that, with its hardcore inside combustion engine fanbase, the occasion was one thing of a tricky gig to play for a next-generation electrified supercar. Nevertheless, he was happy with the response the Artura was producing. “Individuals are developing and asking, ‘Why hybrid?’, and that provides us the chance to elucidate how the hybrid system provides to the driving expertise”.

The truth that a producer of the calibre of McLaren selected to exhibit a automobile as important because the Artura reveals simply how significantly the business now takes the SCD Secret Meet. Bentley was additionally there, and in addition to displaying a few of its newest street automobiles, it had one mannequin in motion on the observe that neither love nor cash may purchase.

That automobile was the Bentley Velocity 8 that received the Le Mans 24 Hours race in 2003 within the fingers of Rinaldo Capello, Tom Kristensen and Man Smith, with the latter again behind the wheel at Donington.

“The Velocity 8 doesn’t get run fairly often, nevertheless it’s vital that it doesn’t find yourself mothballed without end in a museum. It’s an actual honour to get to drive it once more. It simply brings again such wonderful recollections”, revealed Man. “However I can’t imagine that it’s twenty years outdated now. I’m fortunate sufficient to nonetheless get to drive fashionable prototype race automobiles, and the Velocity 8 nonetheless looks like a contemporary automobile and proper on the tempo”.

Along with nonetheless being deeply impressed by the automobile he drove to victory at Le Mans virtually 20 years in the past, Man was blown away by the occasion itself. “I had no thought what to anticipate.  I believed it might be like a small automobile meet for about 100 folks. After which, after I was coming near the circuit and seeing all of the automobiles and all of the photographers on the roads outdoors, it felt like being at a Components One occasion or one thing. It’s simply wonderful. A number of the supercars which might be listed here are so uncommon, and also you simply don’t get to see them that always in any respect.”

JBR Capital Founder and Government Director Darren Selig shared Man’s sentiments: “I believe SCD’s Secret Meet is now the premier fanatics’ occasion within the calendar. The place else are you able to expertise the sight, sound and odor of so many supercars and hypercars being pushed onerous round a observe?”.

For Darren, the spotlight was the prospect to take part within the Ferrari demonstration. “I obtained to experience within the La Ferrari with Selena Bailey.
I’d by no means been in a single earlier than, and it was attention-grabbing as a result of, in some ways, that automobile is the following iteration of the F50, which remains to be my dream automobile. It was a improbable expertise, and it does make you marvel what on earth SCD will do for subsequent yr’s Secret Meet”.

To search out out, we’ll simply have to attend one other 12 months after which, who is aware of what supercar goals could come once more.