RML Short Wheelbase review — redefining the word 'fun'

RML’s new Short Wheelbase might stretch the finances but as far as Andrew Frankel is concerned it’s worth every penny

RMC Short Wheelbase on the road

Unlike the Ferrari 250 SWB, there’s room in the RMC Short Wheelbase for the long-legged

David Shepherd / RML

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Appearances can be deceptive. Despite the seven-figure price, this is not a Ferrari 250 SWB in Rob Walker colours you’re looking at. Nor is it even a Ferrari of that period and of a kind such as a 250 GTE that often get cut up to make recreated versions of Enzo’s greatest hits. It’s not even a conventional restomod like a Singer 911 or Eagle E-type where at least the departure point from the original is a 911 or E-type. This is something else.

It’s the work of RML – Ray Mallock Ltd – which is far better known for its forays into most forms of motor-racing but has for years been quietly working away with many different OEMs to help bring their products to market. The Short Wheelbase (as this car is called), however, is entirely for them. Designed, engineered, built and developed in-house by RML.

The idea is actually quite simple: take a far more modern Ferrari than an original SWB but one which retains that car’s essential formula – the naturally aspirated V12 motor, the manual gearbox, the drive to the rear wheels alone and so on – and reclothe it to look like the SWB, so you get the appearance of one, with the performance of the other. At least in theory. And it does only look like an old SWB – it’s a bigger car by far and sits on a longer wheelbase so it would not share a single panel in common even if they were made from aluminium. But they’re not: the body of the Short Wheelbase is entirely carbon fibre.

The car doing the donating is actually a 1990s 550 Maranello which bequeaths its chassis, suspension, engine and gearbox, all major mechanical items being rebuilt and the engine blueprinted to be as good as, and probably better than, new.

RMC Short Wheelbase Interior

RMC has tastefully updated the 250’s interior styling – what the sales bumf refers to as “discreet modernity”

David Shepherd / RML

The interior mimics that of the original SWB in similar vein. None of it is the same, but the approach – big clocks in front of you, smaller ones laid out in a line across the centre of the cabin with switches below – is. But unlike any SWB that I know, this one has a hidden navigation unit that deploys on demand, effective air conditioning, decent sound system and Apple CarPlay.

“Briefly I felt like Stirling winning the 1961 TT at Goodwood”

It’s got something else you won’t find in the original too. Space. I’ve been fortunate enough to drive the Rob Walker SWB in which Stirling Moss won the 1961 Tourist Trophy and I can confirm that if you’re 6ft 3in, it’s really quite cosy in there. Not here: RML founder Ray Mallock and his son Michael, who now runs the business, are both similarly tall and have ensured the Short Wheelbase has room inside for all conventionally proportioned people.

The 5.5-litre V12 fires with a whirr that’s not so very different to that of the 3-litre Colombo V12 in an SWB, though the sound that it makes thereafter, smoother, more cultured and less angry on fuel injection rather than triple Webers, undoubtedly is. It produces 479bhp, a slightly lower specific output than the SWB achieved in period, but with probably a rather better manner and, weighing around 1700kg, their power-to-weight ratios are probably quite similar.

But RML has made no attempt to turn this car into a track-day machine or even a tyre-melting road warrior. It is quite softly sprung and sits on, by modern standards, reasonably modestly proportioned and quite hard tyres. It’s a road car in which how fast you’re going matters not in the least relative to how much fun you’re having while going fast.

From the archive

I don’t feel qualified to say whether such a device can ever be worth so much money – I guess if it sells it will be and there will only be 30 of them at most – but I can tell you this: created by RML, it is not only beautiful to look at (though I take issue with those cod-Borrani wheels) and fabulously well put together, it is possibly the most entertaining road car I tested in 2022.

I drove it on both road and track and in some fairly outstanding company – think Ferrari 296 GTB, McLaren Artura, Maserati MC20 – and every time I got out of it I knew that whatever I’d be driving next would be both far faster and less fun. Because it wouldn’t sound like the Short Wheelbase, change gear like the Short Wheelbase or, above all, drift like the Short Wheelbase. With those Pirelli Rosso tyres the Short Wheelbase is never going to set a decent lap time, but with beautifully set-up suspension, near- telepathic feel and a wonderful balance, I was having too much of a good time to care.

You let the V12 howl past 7000rpm before hearing that scrape as you throw the lever around the open gate, stand on the brakes as you approach the corner then turn in with the weight still fully transferred forward. The back breaks loose, you go hard on the power with the engine pleasingly growling, and you’re away.

It’s not a question of making the car slide and then correcting according to need, because you can decide before even entering the corner just how sideways you’d be at its exit or for how long you want to maintain the drift. Briefly I felt like Stirling in the real thing winning the 1961 TT at Goodwood. And if that was the aim with the Short Wheelbase, and I think it probably was, I’m calling that job done.

RML SWB 300 rear

RML Short Wheelbase

• Price £1,620,000
• Engine 5.5 litres, 12 cylinders, petrol
• Power 479bhp at 7000rpm
• Torque 419lb ft at 5000rpm
• Weight 1700kg
• Power to weight 282bhp per tonne
• Transmission Six-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
• 0-60mph 4.1sec
• Top speed 180mph
• Economy N/a
• CO2  N/a
• Verdict Best drive of the year.

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