At heart, this is a Lotus Seven – just one with 666bhp per tonne and Le Mans-grade materials tech
You descend into the cockpit of the Donkervoort F22 to find Sabelt harnesses but also, if specified, heated seats. At just 750kg wet, it is light enough to belong in the super-lightweight clique, yet the contact patch is almost to Ferrari 430 Scuderia spec. Then there is the power-to-weight ratio, which is a satanic 666bhp per tonne, though engineers on the project insist the car is capable of rewarding those of a more saintly disposition (or simply unable to take it by the carbon scruff).They also say it’s fit for touring, with real ride quality, yet there’s little doubt this car would munch anything the sensible side of a McLaren 750S were you to unsheathe one at a track day, as many owners will do.The Dutch are refreshingly no-bullshit and we know from experience that this attitude translates into the product at Donkervoort, whose Lelystad factory is noteworthy for being built on reclaimed land and sits 3m below sea level.In the 45 years since Joop ‘The Professor’ Donkervoort secured his country’s rights to the Lotus 7 and launched the S7, the company has mastered the cigar-tube-on-wheels format and taken it to ever more riotous levels, but always with method behind the madness in the form of pedigree engineering. In 2020, Matt Prior discovered as much when he drove the D8 GTO, the model that makes way for the wilder F22. It was “blindingly quick” and “thoroughly sorted” but also on another level to anything by Caterham in terms of weekend-away ability. The catch? An eye-widening price.On the way here, quite naturally, I was preoccupied with the driving element. That power-to-weight ratio borders on the macabre and rain was forecast. However, once on the factory floor, the balance shifts. Passing through the double doors that connect Donkervoort’s showroom to the workshop behind, you begin to understand how Augustus Gloop may have felt when he found himself backstage at the Chocolate Factory: transfixed.Machine polishers whirr, blue blasts emanate from the brazing bench where the F22’s thin-gauge tubular frame is made, and colour is everywhere: Audi’s red-headed engines, gold AP Racing calipers ready to install, colour-coded diffuser vanes and coil springs, and the flawless paint jobs of cars in build, with no two alike. One is done up in the colour scheme of Ayrton Senna’s helmet, another in Gulf livery. It sounds like over-egging the pudding somewhat but, honestly, both Donks look sensationally good.It’s enough to make you overlook the most important colour of all: grey. Or rather, the charcoal hue of carbonfibre. And not typical carbonfibre, which is laid up in strips then baked in an autoclave, though they have one of those too. This is the cutting-edge bit of the F22, because Donkervoort has spent 10 years developing what it calls Ex-Core – an ultra-strong composite made by filling shells of carbon with foam that expands when heated inside a mould. The foam solidies, giving the part immense resistance to deformity but incredible lightness.The Ex-Core hub is hidden away at the back of the workshop proper and isn’t only tasked with making F22 bits. It’s a charming quirk of the Donkervoort operation that in one corner of this tiny factory they might be restoring an S8T from 1985, while at the other end the Ex-Core team are constructing aero elements for overnight shipping and fitment to, for example, Toyota’s GR010 LMH.Other clients include at least one Formula 1 team, which remains unnamed, but as the project grows, expect Ex-Core to crop up in all sorts of applications, not just automotive.