The cockpit is cramped, the engine loud, the analogue instruments flicker nervously and there is no air-conditioning - can this really be a super sports car from the year 2024?
Car testers these days are used to electric hypercars like the Rimac Nevera, which looks like a UFO and drives like a space shuttle. Or else a Bugatti Tourbillon with its almost baroque fittings.
But now Audi has unveiled a high-speed sports car that catapults its driver almost a century into the past: The Type 52, which has only just now made its debut, is a streamlined sports saloon based on plans from the 1930s.
It's a pity that no one recognised the charm of the idea back then, one which has sustained sports car manufacturers like Ferrari, McLaren, Aston Martin and even Mercedes-AMG to this day.
The motto of these race-tuned machines was "win on Sunday, sell on Monday". Perhaps Ferdinand Porsche had this in mind when he wanted to offer a high-speed sports car for the road alongside the heroic and successful Silver Arrow racing cars of types A to D in the 1930s.
After all, Auto Union was a household name back then and it would have made sense to try to exploit that success by building a racing-car-derived road car. But alas, it was not to be.
The slippery teardrop-shaped Type 52 had all the right ingredients to become the king of the newly invented Autobahn highway. It would have outperformed even the Mercedes 540 K with its near unrivalled 132 kW/180 hp and 185 km/h.
And even with a throttled-back output of 147 kW/200 hp, the Audi would probably have managed a good 200 km/h on the straights, experts believe.
Audi longed to put an end to such speculation and in the wake of its 2013 Le Mans race success, the factory decided to make the dream of yesteryear come true after all.
For 10 years, classic car specialists pored over the sketches and came up with a final design from them. They moulded hand-beaten aluminium sheets over wooden frames and designed an interior that is sporty and classy
They also decided to let the horses get the upper hand and junked Porsche's advice about governing the engine. As in the C and D models, a cultivated 6.0-litre engine with a monstrous output of 382 kW/520 hp delivers dazzling performance.
Even by today's standards, this qualifies the Type 52 as a super sports car. After all, even the most powerful version of the Audi R8 only had 74 kW/100 hp more at its disposal. Some 90 years ago, the Silver Arrow would have been regarded as a car from another planet.
The same applies to the design too. The engine is mounted in the centre - in line in a Formula 1 racing car today. It boasts 16-cylinders and the silver bodywork has been stretched to nearly 5.30 metres in order to make the motor fit.
The only problem is that there is not much space left for the occupants. Although the high-speed sports car should have been a luxury car, the driver and his two companions huddle in a cramped cabin with only enough room for one row of seats behind a short snubby nose.
As later in the McLaren F1 and now again in the AMG One, the driver sits in the centre and the passengers perch only slightly offset to the left and right.
Unfortunately, Audi doesn't let just anyone else get behind the wheel of this beast. That is left to professionals like Hans-Joachim Stuck, son of a pre-war Auto-Union racing legend Hans Stuck, or else Audi's own mechanics.
Testers have to make do with being a spectator but this is thrilling enough. The driver has to threads his legs under the huge steering wheel, with two small pedals for braking and acceleration. Power steering is not fitted and wrenching this colossus around the bends calls for brute force while and reaching for the gear stick means fumbling in the hollow of a passenger's knee.
You're also glad that the man at the wheel would not dream of trying to reach the theoretical top speed. The Type 52 certainly feels as if it could top the 200 km/h predicted by Porsche with ease.
The mighty 16-cylinder engine, which rages behind a thin sheet metal wall, produces enormous heat so it is toasty in the cabin. It is not often that you can experience a car that is brand new and 90 years old at the same time.
"Would have been", "could have been ..." - you are stuck in the subjunctive tense with this car, even if Audi did realise Ferdinand Porsche's vision after a delay of nearly a century.
The Type 52 is a fascinating machine in 2024 and is really the mother of all hypercars. It is a one-off and even if anyone could afford to buy it, this car is strictly not for sale.
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