The Donkervoort->ke1416 D8 GTO is nothing short of a riot. With its Audi->ke14-sourced, turbocharged five-cylinder engine and aggressive styling, the D8 GTO is breaking boundaries and expectations.
Now the D8 GTO is breaking more than mental and performance boundaries. Last week, the very first D8 GTOs were registered outside the European Union, as a pair of premium model GTOs found new homes and registration plates in Switzerland.
We brought you the news that the Donkervoort D8 GTO had received its small series-type approval, allowing it to be sold in the EU, Russia, Switzerland and the Gulf States, but it wasn’t until last week that the first GTOs actually made that journey.
The two new Swiss owners now own the keys to a two-seat roadster->ke1418 in the same track-day vein as the Lotus->ke49 Seven, but thanks to that Audi engine, these monsters produce up to 400 horsepower.
To commemorate the occasion, the cars were personally delivered by Dennis Donkervoort.
Read more about Donkervoort and its D8 GTO after the jump.}
Donkervoort is a Netherlands-based company that started life in 1978 making clones of the Lotus Seven. The D8 GTO is the latest and greatest machine from Donkervoort, and its builds on a 30-plus-year legacy of creating super-fast machines.
It may still have the general proportions of the Lotus Seven, but the D8 GTO is a completely unique beast both in terms of design and performance.Thanks to a full carbon-fiber body, the car weighs under 1,500 pounds. With its 380 horsepower, Audi-sourced, 2.5-liter turbocharged five-cylinder the D8 GTO has a power-to-weight ratio of under two pounds per horsepower.
That allows the D8 GTO to hit 60 mph from a dead stop in less than three seconds, and makes it one of the fastest road legal cars in the world.