Survival instructions, quick start guide. One, kiss your comfort zone goodbye. Two, try not to bid adieu to your arse as well. Three, or your driving licence. Four, ditch the passenger (size-zero road racers are poised on a power/weight knife-edge). Five, don’t kid yourself this is transport, the destination is always the same – your own limits. And six, you will probably fight it, but addiction is a certainty.
On the face of it, the KTM X-Bow understands this version of reality well. It may come from Austria and have a road-car pedigree precisely no inches long, but it is arguably the most extraordinary object with four wheels ever to be seen on a road and, when you switch it on, its cute, rubberised LCD instrument pod that sits between the cowls of the facia asks you a provocative question (‘Ready to race?’), the implication being that even if you aren’t, it is. The irony of this will dawn slowly, but dawn it will.
Right now, having been confronted with issues concerning the will to live by the M25 on the way to collecting the KTM in Chessington, the answer is ‘no’. Conveniently, associate ed Ollie Marriage, who’s already arrived in evo’s long-term M3, agrees to take the first 100-or-so-mile stint towards the evo Triangle in Wales while I tag along in the BMW. In fact, the M3 is just the car I need to realign my sensibilities for the job in hand – a real-world tin- (well, carbon-) top hero with formidable pace and all-round talent that simply isn’t used to having sand kicked in its face. On this leg of the journey, at least, it should keep up. In comfort. With the radio on.
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