The Dallara Stradale Is The Pricey, Limited-Production Track Day Nemesis Of The Lotus 3-Eleven

Chassis maker Dallara has released its first road car, and this is it. Well done if you’ve already guessed that the Stradale is no everyday shopping car. It’s road-legal, but not exactly what you’d call practical. Or cheap: it’s about £140,000 plus VAT, registration and extra taxes.

At present it’s left-hand drive only. There are no doors. Don’t be silly; that would ruin the cooling system design, which sees enclosed channels running within the bodywork from the nose to the mid-mounted 2.3-litre turbocharged Ford EcoBoost engine.

There’s no power steering ‘in the interests of purity.’ There’s no windscreen. As standard you get a minimal and fairly useless wind deflector ahead of each occupant, sort of like screens on motorbike fairings. If you want a more traditional bug barrier then you’ll be relieved of £14,500 or so. We’re not kidding.

You can also have a roof for just under £7000 and two top-hinged sort-of-but-not-really doors for almost the same price. All plus VAT.

You don’t get air-con, heated seats, a stereo, sat-nav or even Bluetooth. Because you need none of those things. What you do get is a 400bhp, 855kg track-focused monster with Dallara pedigree and as much as 820kg of aero downforce. Fast? You bet your life it is.

Those without a wish to be killed will welcome the standard traction control, but you don’t get track-spec tyres or adjustable dampers for your money. They’re optional. There is, however, a six-speed manual gearbox (huzzah!) with plans in the pipeline for a single-clutch automated manual option.

With the Lotus 3-Eleven priced at less than half of what a mildly-optioned Dallara Stradale will cost, this is a track attacker aimed squarely at people with plenty of money to burn. The first year’s production – about 120 cars – have already been sold, says Dallara.

How many of those are genuine buyers and how many are speculators trying to make a fast buck on an early production slot, we’ll have to wait and see.