CarBrandLogos archive · Noble · 2000

NobleM12

A steel spaceframe, a turbocharged Ford V6, and almost no electronics.

Photo: Charles01 · CC BY-SA 4.0

The story

A defining chapter in Noble history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Noble M12, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

Lee Noble's approach was to spend money on the chassis and nowhere else. The M12 uses a steel spaceframe with composite panels, a Ford Duratec V6 with two turbochargers mounted transversely behind the cabin, and a Getrag six-speed. There is no traction control and no anti-lock braking. The result weighs very little and, in the hands of the British press, repeatedly embarrassed cars costing several times as much in handling tests.

Noble M12 GTO - Flickr - exfordy · Brian Snelson from Hockley, Essex, England · CC BY 2.0

Design and engineering

The manufacturing arrangement was equally unglamorous. Hi-Tech Automotive in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, built the cars under licence and shipped them to Leicestershire for engine installation and finishing. The cabin was plain, the switchgear came from parts bins, and none of that was the point.

In production

A sequence of versions followed between 2000 and 2008, growing in capacity and output, with the M400 named for the ratio of its power to its weight. A closely related car was later sold in the United States as the Rossion Q1.

Legacy

It remains the reference for what a small British firm can do with a good chassis and a mass-produced engine, and its reputation among people who have driven one is out of all proportion to how many were built.

At a glance