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The Toyota Quantum (HiAce to everyone else around the world) is a staple part of South African automotive furniture. Mainly because it’s the nation’s taxi. But you – or any South African, for that matter – has never seen one as wild as this before. We give you the bright orange 600bhp Lamborghini-inspired Quantum with a twin-turbo V12 mounted in its belly! Well, most of it…

Where we plummy Brits have a black Hackney Carriage, the US has yellow Crown Vics and Morocco has ageing Mercs, South Africa has a high-sided panel van. They’re nearly always overcapacity and driven with no care for traffic regulations until the whitewall tyres are worn through....

A three-week vacation in America driving Bugattis. Sounds like the dream, huh? And it probably is, though this was no holiday, rather some stern hot-weather testing for a bunch of engineers working on the new Bugatti Centodieci.

Yep, if the Chiron Super Sport is just a little too common for your tastes, the limited-to-ten, £9m Centodieci ought to answer your concerns. Inspired by Bugatti’s Nineties leviathan – the EB110, a quad-turbo nutcase sold before anyone had uttered the word ‘hypercar’ – it ought to be a truly special thing.

We dearly hope its ten owners do more than scurry it away in storage to be brought out for a tootle to the nearest concours event. Not least Bugatti’s given it the full engineering job, including that three-week sojourn to 50-degree Arizonian heat.

In fact, it’s been subjected to even greater scrutiny than the Chiron, of which 500 are being made. “The Centodieci’s newly developed bodywork, airflow changes, and its engine bay cover manufactured from glass mean the temperature behaviour is quite different, especially in such extreme heat conditions,” says André Kullig, the car’s project manager.

The car's fitted with 200 sensors to feed the data back to Bugatti HQ. Not everone on the test team gets to top up their air miles...

M5 CS? Isn’t that a contradiction in terms?

A lightweight version of a heavy car? I expect we’ll be seeing a lot more of this as we enter the electrical age. But yeah, the idea of the M5 CS didn’t sit easily with me. I couldn’t see the point of it, or more accurately, what BMW was trying to achieve with it. But then I drove it.

And it all made sense?

Yep, but before we get to that we need to do more backstory, because it helps frame the car. This is not a limited edition model. BMW will build all they can sell of ‘the most powerful car in the history of BMW M’. What’s more I wouldn’t be surprised if this is currently the only M5 they’re producing. BMW has previously admitted that once the Competition arrived (it was facelifted last year), no-one bought the ten grand cheaper standard M5 anymore. Stands to reason that when the CS lands, that’s the one everyone will want.

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