Le Mans-bred technology and race car styling should propel Prosche's new 558bhp stromer to the head of the supercar elite.

The brief given to the hand-picked team of designers and engineers by Porsche chairman Wendelin Wiedeking was straight to the point. Take the firm’s aborted Le Mans race car and transform it into a world-beating road car. The Carrera GT is the amazing result.

Shrouded in secrecy right up to its unveiling at the Louvre in Paris on September 28, the uncompromising V10-powered two-seater aims to establish a standard of performance beyond the reach of today’s supercar elite when it is launched in 2003 at a likely price of £400,000 (Rs 2.8 crore).

Not since the Ferrari F50 entered the fray five years ago has a car boasted such a celebrated competition background, nor carried such a large weight of expectation, as this spectacular newcomer.

Based on the mysteriously mothballed 2000 Le Mans challenger, it aims to bring the driver close to a full-blown race car experience while retaining a level of comfort similar to Porsche’s Boxster and 911.

Only Porsche could hope to flaunt its race-winning tradition at the 24-hour classic with such abandon. Yes, we have seen Porsche’s race cars made fit for the road before, the latest being the brazen 911 GT1 which thundered on to the scene in 1997. However, it was little more than a thinly-veiled racer without the sponsorship decals and was produced in tiny numbers to satisfy regulations. The Carrera GT, on the other hand, has been developed first and foremost as a road car and is earmarked for limited production over several years.

“There are no concessions to race car homologation,” says August Achleitner, the car’s softly spoken project leader.

Departing from a long and illustrious history of horizontally opposed six-cylinder power, Porsche’s latest road racer runs a new all-alloy V10 engine originally developed for competition use but detuned to make it suitable for everyday driving and to ensure it conforms to stringent European Union emissions standards. The naturally aspirated unit mounted directly to the rear bulkhead boasts a 5.5-litre capacity and delivers a 911 GT1-slaying 558bhp.

Porsche claims a hefty 558bhp and 62kgm from 5.5-litreV10

The Carrera GT’s flamboyant yet flawed predecessor managed 544bhp from just 3.1 litres with the help of a pair of KKK blowers. However, its inherent turbo lag and narrow powerband made it virtually impossible to drive in certain conditions. With a massive 62kgm of torque, the new engine promises far greater tractability and a much broader spread of useable power.

Porsche won’t go into details about its new powerplant prior to it gaining final production approval, but does reveal that it is extremely compact at just 570mm in length, achieved by doing without integrated cylinder liners, using a coating of nickel and silicon instead.

The 68-degree unit boasts four valves per cylinder, four chain-driven overhead camshafts, titanium conrods and forged aluminium pistons. Electronic mapping and injection timing are taken care of by the latest Bosch Motronic management system, while dry-sump lubrication is used for reliable scavenging of the oil.

The cut-out is set at 8200rpm, which seems conservative for a thoroughly modern engine with such exotic internals.

“In bench testing we’ve taken it over 10,000rpm,” says Thomas Ludenbach, the young German credited with engineering the new engine. “But at that level the durability of the valvegear begins to come into question.”