In automotive design, there’s something called a dash-to-axle ratio. It’s the distance from the dashboard to the front axle of the car, compared to the distance between the two axles (the wheelbase). Commonly this is a sign of luxury, opulence and performance, typically pointing to a larger engine and rear-wheel-drive layout. More dash-to-axle is usually better than less, but there comes a point where it all just gets absurd and comical. That point is this, the Donkervoort P24 RS, and I love it so much.
Donkervoort has never made a normal-looking vehicle since its founding, and the company will be damned if it’s going to start now. The Dutch automaker builds its cars long and low (and now with colored carbon fiber), but the proportions on the P24 RS look like the most extreme yet. The driver of this little roadster almost sits on the rear axle, which must make for a completely different driving experience. I don’t have the art knowledge to say whether this car looks objectively Good or not, but I can certainly say that it’s so absurd that it makes me smile.
Look how pretty
Subjectively, though, the P24 RS turns Donkervoort’s long hoods into self-parody. Does a V6 engine require this much space? Absolutely not! And yet, I’d be upset if the Dutch didn’t give that mill its fair share of room to breathe, because that move left us with this clown shoe-looking sports car. It’s just comically long, and I want one. I don’t even need the full 600 horsepower and 590 pound-feet of torque from the 3.5-liter twin-turbo V6 that Donkervoort hid away under the acres of hood space here — honestly, a smaller engine might make it even funnier.
The Donkervoort P24 RS is, like everything else Donkervoort makes, an absolutely batshit vehicle built for two purposes: Going fast, and looking good doing it. This new model cranks that latter dial to 11, and in doing so creates something so over-the-top that I can’t help but smile every time I glance up at that rear-three-quarter press shot. It’s so absurd, it loops all the way back around to being brilliant.
As fast as it looks
Donkervoort claims the P24 RS weighs 1,720 pounds, though the company states that’s a dry figure — it doesn’t specify weight with fuel, oil, or other such luxuries. Lest you be concerned that such lightness would compromise high-speed stability, though, the company also offers an aero package that adds nearly 200 pounds of downforce at 155 mph. I wonder how much of that weight is in the hood alone. It can’t be negligible.
The zero-to-60-mph time for the car is just listed as “appropriately quick,” though Donkervoort claims it’ll hit 124 mph in 7.4 seconds. The company also says the P24 RS will pull 2.3g of cornering force, which apparently necessitated the engine use a dry-sump oiling system to maintain pressure — a setup that conveniently allowed Donkervoort to further lower the car’s center of gravity. Yet, despite all that race-derived tech, the car only runs a five-speed transmission. There wasn’t room for one more gear behind that long nose?
Why the long nose?
Donkervoort says the P24 RS’s turbos are totally unique billet units, which “do not share parts with any other production turbocharger.” Those turbos make 17.4 psi of boost, a number familiar to every EJ25-powered WRX owner looking to not blow the end caps off their stock intercooler, though the Donkervoort’s cooling is marginally more advances: The car uses 3D printed liquid-to-air intercoolers between the turbochargers and the intake manifolds. The engine’s headers, too, are 3D printed for manufacturing efficiency.
The Donkervoort P24 RS is as lightweight and as fast as one would expect from its $354,000 price tag, though registration in the United States apparently requires a “proven process in collaboration with our technical partner in Florida” — a sales pitch that sounds more like snake oil than a supercar. Still, if you want the Borzoi of motor vehicles, there’s no better place to look.
