For the purpose of reducing emissions and energy consumption, the UK has turned into a somewhat hostile social environment as the government imposes increasingly stringent taxation upon motorist, particularly those with vehicles in the luxury segment.

In response, famous BMW supported tuner, Alpina, has taken the 2.0-liter twin turbo diesel from BMW’s 123d model, tweaked it to produce 10 more horsepower and stuck it in their E92 3-Series Coupe.

As a result, the increased hp and lighter engine means an overall power-to-weight ratio of 146hp per tonne – virtually matching BMW’s own 330d Coupe. The car is capable of 152mph and 0-62mph in 6.9 secs and yet the official fuel consumption and emission figures tell a very different story: 52.3mpg (overall EU) and 143g/km! (manual trans).

This year only 100 units of the ALPINA D3 Bi-Turbo Coupe will be available in the UK.

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An abundance of older cars now on the road, too, thanks to the magic of galvanised steel that resists the onset of rust, the classic car scene has never been stronger and sports car fans that really want to enjoy themselves are often picking up the specialist press rather than the latest brochure.

With all the money they’ve saved paying for the salesman’s hair gel, and the kind of depreciation that only the US dollar can understand, they’re taking their new old toy to the tuners, too. And that can result in real monsters, like this Porsche 993 Turbo with a simply mental 600bhp.

Jan Fatthauer made his name with the headline-grabbing Vf400 and followed up with the GT9, which should be the fastest production car in the world soon enough as soon as he can find the right track on the right day and breeze through the 258mph mark. But a visit to his mighty Dortmund workshop reveals a collection of 996s, a 944 Twin Turbo and even a GT2-powered classic camper van. The public face of the company does not convey the sheer madness of the projects behind closed doors.

It often starts with a simple restoration for a valued customer, but when you’re dealing with a man who has created an 1100bhp 911 Turbo Cabriolet then a few tweaks are inevitable. Blessed with hindsight Jan can improve upon the originals and then just keep going to an inordinate, dangerous level. As he has here…

Because a simple shove on the throttle elicited the kind of fearsome response you might expect from walking up to a sleeping lion and kicking it squarely in the testicles. Even the most savage modern car sounds smooth, honed, tuned, this thing sounded like it was firing nails through the block and would probably bite your face off in a bar fight.

There are whole forums devoted the air-cooled vs water-cooled 911 debate and this, the 993, was the last of those regulated by simple cold air. That means it’s about as refined as a Tasmanian Devil and has a deep growl that is somehow more dangerous than anything we could come up with today.

Then there was the open road, a set path that 9ff describes as its “test route”. In fact it’s the road next to the airport, a place I have wiled away many an afternoon in deep discussion with the local police about what constitutes a safe speed. In a car like this, another little chat seemed more than inevitable.

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