The SP40 Restomod Speedster Is A Modern Marvel Wrapped In A History Lesson

If you know your automotive history, you know who Edsel Ford is. But it's okay if you don't know him. A lot of people only know him for the spectacular failure of a car brand that was named after him, and that was not his fault. Because, well, he'd been dead at the time for quite a while, and his family didn't even want his name on it in the first place. No, Edsel should be better known, because he should be known as the man who modernized the Ford Motor Company in the 1920s and 30s. See, his father, Henry, was a complicated guy. Some good things, some very bad things, but one thing he was not was a designer. As far as Henry was concerned, the Model T was all you needed. That was all the car that anybody needed. And the whole point of bodywork was to keep you inside and the elements outside. But Edsel, see, Edsel understood the difference between need and want. Edsel understood that design sells cars because they're emotional decisions. When you buy a car. Edsel helped create the very first design studio at Ford. And in 1934, he commissioned their first designer, Bob Gregory, to create the Model 40 Special Speedster. Now, this is not the original Model 40 Special Speedster. That car is still at Edsel's house. It's now a museum. You can go visit it. This is the SP40 Restomod Speedster. And it's not an identical replica of the Special Speedster. And it's not technically a Restomod either because it's a completely new car, new chassis, new powertrain, new everything. So really, you kind of call it maybe a repli-mod. But to really understand this car, we have to change hats. Take it for a drive. As you can tell, it has a V8, which is historically accurate. The original Special Speedster had a flathead V8 with well under 100 horsepower. This has a Ford 5-liter Coyote V8, which in a Mustang, straight out of the box, makes 460 years of horsepower. It sounds like that. This one is basically bone stock. It's got a little tune for the exhaust and the intake, but it doesn't need any more than that because this car only weighs 2,624 pounds, which gives it a power-to-weight ratio of something like 5.7 pounds per horsepower, which is nothing. It's connected to a five-speed Tremec manual gearbox and a Ford Performance mechanical limited-slip rear differential. And there are no aerodynamics to speak of. So everything is being done by the shocks and the tires. And you gotta say, the thing that surprises everyone about this car is how well it rides. See, this car was developed on the racetrack first, and then they turned it down for the road car version. And you would expect that it would be really stiff, but it's honestly not. You will see the front tires going up and down because you can see them. And you won't actually feel the bumps up at the front of the car, though. You feel them on the rear axle because it's right here. I can reach back and touch the rear fender behind me here. So you feel everything at the back of the car. The front wheels are so far forward that the front axle center line, if you look at the center of the wheel, is actually ahead of the grille. That's how far out there they are. And what that means is when you turn this car and you're all the way back here, the front end of the car turns before the back end does. So you really have to get used to driving this car and get used to turning a little bit later than you normally would if you were sitting closer to the front like you would be in most modern cars. And then you gotta use this experience way back here in the back, what it feels like. Because it feels like when you're in the absolute last car on the roller coaster and you get that little bit of getting whipped around every time it goes around a corner. Pretty much the only other cars that I could compare it to to give you a sense is like a Morgan Plus 4, or really a Plus 8, or a Caterham 7, maybe. But you haven't driven one of those either, most likely. So it's really hard to fully say how different this feels from most cars you drive. Sure don't sound like this either. Now, we've driven the original Special Speedster. We did a feature on it for Motor Trend Classic back in 2013. We said about that car that what happens when you turn the steering wheel is whatever passed for handling in 1934 when the car was originally designed and built. That's not the case here. This custom chassis, this car is a little big for this narrow road. But as you can see, keeping up just fine. Now that I've got a sense of how to handle it, when to turn. It works really well, especially since I'm not at speeds where aerodynamics would mean anything anyway. So you can use all the mechanical grip in these tires. And part of me is tempted to give that limited slip rear differential a try. But this car costs half a million dollars, and it's the only one in existence right now out of the 40 that they're planning to build. So I think I'm going to restrain myself just a little bit. The driving experience is an interesting juxtaposition of new and old. Obviously, it handles like a modern car with its own eccentricities. But it also feels old school. They've got this power steering tune so that it helps you at very low speeds in a parking lot. But as you speed up, there's less and less assist. So when you really start going quickly, you really have to start muscling it. Like you've got to give it some effort going around these tight corners with some speed. Like it's not easy. So you might want to go ahead and skip arm day before you get in this car. Because you don't want to be coming at this with sore, worn out arms. And you know what? Maybe skip leg day too. The clutch is heavy. The travel is long. The bite point is right up at the very top. It starts to engage in the middle. But it doesn't fully bite right until the very top of the travel. So you really got to finesse it when you're first getting going. Or you get a real jerky start. And that takes a little bit of effort. Meanwhile, the brakes. There's six piston Brembos in the front, four in the rear. And it's not a heavy car. But the brake pedal has a lot of travel. The brakes don't have a lot of initial bite. So you really got to step on them to make it stop. You also have to make sure you've got your foot squarely on the brake pedal. Because there's so much travel. It's really easy to accidentally overlap with the gas pedal. And be giving yourself gas while you're trying to stop. So as you can see, this car is doing corners remarkably well. And having much wider, fatter, modern tires is doing a lot of that work for it. But really, it kind of wants to be a cruiser. For as much work as they put into making it go around the corner, it kind of wants to be out there, out on PCH, cruising along the ocean. You know, arm out the window, enjoying the beautiful view, smelling the ocean. That's kind of where it's happiest. But if you do push it, it will respond. It's so light. And the engine has so much torque that a lot of times you can just dip into it. And it'll just go. You don't really have to actually change gears all that much. The other thing you notice about this car is that the seats are very upright. They're fixed backs. So this is what you get. Unlike the seats that would have been in the original Special Speedster, these have a lot of bolstering. So I'm actually being held in place as I go around these corners here, which is really nice, really appreciated. It's actually a blessing and a curse that they changed the windshield. The original had two windshields in what's called the Brooklyn style. And they let a lot more wind around into your face. This one does a better job of actually protecting you, which on a cold day would be great. On today, when it's quite sunny and warm, I wouldn't mind a little more airflow. Because since this car has no, you know, formal aerodynamics work, all that hot air from the engine is spilling over into the cabin. So it's a bit warm in here. And this is a prototype. They are still looking at doing more heat insulation, doing a bit more tweaking here, a bit more tuning there. So it's not completely done yet. But it's definitely a good car you want to either drive on a cooler day or maybe don't wear a suit while you're doing it. I don't know how those guys in the 1930s did it. If you are planning to use a lot of throttle, I might suggest some concert quality earplugs. This car sounds beautiful, no argument. But it is very, very loud, because I am sitting right on top of the exhaust outlet right here. On my left, and there's another right over there. I don't say all these things to complain about the SP40, but just to give you a sense of what it's like to drive it. I like that it's got this old school driving experience. It looks old school. It is a modified replica of a very vintage car. I mean, if you've never driven a car from the 1930s, they don't drive what we would call well today. The standard for what counts as a sports car has changed a lot. And even just for what a regular car drives like. So I'm okay with this. I like that it's got this very old school feel to it. You got to muscle around a little bit. You got to learn what it likes and how it wants to be driven. I think that's fun. I think it gives the car a lot of personality and makes it much more interesting than if it just drove like a Mustang with a body kit or something. Does that make it worth half a million dollars? Well, it's worth what someone will pay for. It is custom from the ground up. And let me tell you, even here in Los Angeles, where everyone's a little bit car jaded, we've seen everything. Everything that you can sell in the United States, plus a few things you can't, have ended up around LA at some point or another. Even here, people stop and break their necks to look at this car. It really does get that kind of attraction. And if you're someone who's buying half a million dollar cars, you've probably got plenty of attention getters already. But you don't have anything like this. You don't have anything that looks like this. Nothing that drives like this. It really is a unique experience that you're paying for. And you're paying for what feels like some really high quality workmanship here. I mean, this is a company that is not well known in the US outside of replica car circles. But this is a very well finished product. Very well thought through. Very well engineered. I mean, we've driven plenty of cars built by smaller independent automakers before. And not all of them are this well sorted and this well done. This is a very cohesive car done by people who actually know their engineering and who really spend the time and the money to build it right. The SP40 Restomod Speedster is such a unique car that even after driving it, it's still a little difficult to fully convey what it's like behind the wheel. But if you absolutely must know and you have about half a million dollars burning a hole in your pocket, you could be one of the 40 people to own one of these. And for all the rest of the details, check out MotorTrend.com.