The boutique supercar company playbook goes something like this: a new outfit working out of a weather-worn industrial unit, in some grim corner of a town you'd never choose to visit, announces it has built a supercar. It shows said supercar - invariably before it's ready to be shown - at some car exhibition or other and receives a small amount of attention from the press and public. Then everything goes quiet. Eventually a handful of cars are built, one or two are delivered to paying customers, and before too long the whole enterprise implodes likes a collapsing star, sucking countless unpaid supplier invoices into the black hole that is all that's left behind.
Can't be a supercar without these, can it?
It's a tale almost as old as the supercar itself. So many ambitious start-ups have come and gone over the years with just a handful of them ever surviving the first 24 months. When they do survive, though, they can go supernova like Pagani and Koenigsegg. But if you looked at the sector in strictly dispassionate terms, before a penny was spent you'd conclude that only a madman would go a single step further.
Sin Cars is Bulgaria's first homegrown car manufacturer. Based in Ruse, near to the border with Romania, the company is the brainchild of businessman and racing driver Rosen Daskalov. It remains to be seen whether or not Sin Cars is set to follow that same well-trodden path towards obscurity, but the company certainly has one big, possibly game-changing advantage over the rest: Daskalov is already a very wealthy man, and the company doesn't have a single other investor. "I'm not doing this to make profit," he says. "I've already made my money. My spare parts business makes more than a million euros a year. To reach this point has cost me eight million euros, most of which has gone on testing."
Daskalov, disarmingly open about money, talks fast and thinks even faster. The forty-something strides around his sprawling facility - which also houses his spare parts business as well as an official BMW service centre - like a man who would still be busy if he could clone himself three times over. His phone never stops ringing.
No missing it. Or mistaking it.
The company's first car is the 550hp R1 550. So far 20 or so have been built, either for the road or for GT4 racing. The R1 550 costs 199,900 euros (before tax). "Initially I wanted to build an affordable car, around 60,000 euros," explains Daskalov, "with maybe 10,000 euros profit on each car. But when I started making calculations...
"The engine, for example, costs 11,000 euros before we modify it. The gearbox is more than 10,000 euros and the wiring loom alone is 8,000 euros. For outside parts we pay 100,000 euros in total. Each car costs us around 150,000 euros to build, so we have a profit of around 50,000 euros on each car."
The R1 is built around a tubular spaceframe chassis, constructed on site, with an LS7 crate engine slotted in the middle. The 7.0-litre V8 is modified with new pistons and bearings, a dry sump oil system and a bespoke exhaust. Buyers can choose between a sequential paddle shift gearbox or a six-speed manual, with an LSD fitted as standard. Sin also offers a supercharged version, the R1 650.
Oooh look, one of those manual things
Over the years more people have built their own spaceframe supercars with crate engines than ever flew on Concorde, but there are one or two important things that set the R1 apart. The bodywork is all carbon fibre, for instance, and the rear wing is active to balance downforce and drag. The suspension is all by double wishbones with in-board struts, while the brakes and dampers are supplied by top line companies: AP Racing and Ohlins.
The cabin is trimmed in soft leather, which gives an impression of quality, but the switchgear is all quite cheap-feeling, which does not. The seats are supportive and they give a near perfect seating position, sharply reclined like in a McLaren P1. The electrically-assisted steering is super light, and the open-gated manual 'box is a little tricky, with inconsistent springing across the gate that makes snagging the wrong gear all too easy.
That very light steering is spooky on the move, giving very little idea of what the four contact patches are actually up to. Eventually, it does start to feel more natural. The big old engine, however, is just brilliant. For one thing its 550hp and 472lb ft of torque have a very predictable effect on 1,400kg of steel and carbon - the R1 is massively fast in a straight line - and for another the soundtrack is fantastic: thunderous V8 rumble with a barking exhaust note.
Right up until the spin it was going great
Daskalov prefers his cars to ride well, even when they're set-up primarily for race tracks. The R1 is no Rolls, but there's a certain plushness to it over bumps and an overall fluidity, plus a fair amount of roll in cornering. On Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tyres the car has masses of mechanical grip, plus a useful amount of downforce at speed, with a very aggressive chassis balance. In fact there's basically no understeer in it at all and lots of oversteer, so the car always feels like it's poised on a knife edge. All of which is a very long-winded way of admitting I spun the damn thing. That balance gives it huge turn-in speed, and therefore massive pace around a lap, just as long as you can keep the rear end under control.
There is still some cooling work to be done so the car did get hot after a handful of laps, albeit in 30-degree ambient temperatures, but the powerful brakes never once faded. We'll see what fate awaits Sin Cars in the coming months and years. In the R1 550, though, the new arrival has built a genuinely thrilling and rewarding supercar.
SIN R1 550
Engine: 7,000cc, V8
Transmission: 6-speed manual, rear-wheel drive, limited-slip differential
Power (hp): 550@6,300rpm
Torque (lb ft): 424@N/A
0-62mph: 3.5sec
Top speed: 186mph
Weight: 1,300kg (dry)
MPG: N/A
CO2: N/A
Price: 199,900 euros +VAT
