THE NOBLE M12 GTO sports car, which is hand-built in the Eastern Cape, has won high praise from one of Britain’s most critical motoring writers. Listing his “good, bad and ugly” for the Sun newspaper, Jeremy Clarkson rated the Noble above the new Lamborghini Murciélago, Mercedes Benz SL and BMW 7-Series lack. He describes the Noble as “the only car to have really risen from the fruit salad of mediocrity like a big dollop of delicious whipped cream”. The chassis and body of the Noble are made outside Port Elizabeth by specialist car manufacturer Hi-Tech Automotive. Hi-Tech, which makes Cobra sports car replicas for the United States market, also produces a replica of the Ford 32 street rod, as well as a Lotus 7 replica. “We are highly competitive when it comes to labour and infrastructure,” says Hi-Tech managing director Jim Price. “Low-volume manufacturing is both space and labour-intensive. “When you look at the rand/dollar and rand/pound exchange rates, our labour costs are among the lowest in the world for this quality of work.” While the body and chassis of the Noble are built in South Africa, the Ford Mondeo engine is fitted a small factory in Leicestershire. “The Noble is more fun than driving a Ferrari over to Claudia Schiffer’s house - for a little light sex. Through the corners, nothing on the road even gets close,” wrote Clarkson. “Not even a four-wheel-drive Porsche 911 Turbo. It absolutely will not understeer and the rear-end breakaway, when it comes, is so gentle that you can correct tail slides while reading a map. The engine may come from a Ford, but it’s the 2.5 V6, which, for that extra something, is garnished with twin turbochargers. The end result is a car that can beat a McLaren F1 from 0-100 km/h. And yet it’s yours for just about forty thousand pounds,” he said.