I’m excited to give it a go but, allowed such dizzying freedom of expression and a hypothetical bottomless pit of money to spend on options, I find myself racked by a paralysing sense of indecision.
Whiling away your lunch break on a configurator can be a relaxing exercise in escapism but, even allowing for the fact that it’s all imaginary, speccing a P39 – with the boss at your side and the production line over your shoulder – feels rather more daunting.
I want to do justice to RML’s lovingly engineered creation and honour its performance potential by not going ‘full Knightsbridge’ with my virtual supercar, but this is a drop-dead silhouette that begs for some lurid adornment.
So Autocar’s P39 is – appropriately – bright yellow. More particularly, it’s a shade that’s inspired by the legendary Ruf CTR ‘Yellowbird’, another 911-based monster that has claimed its fair share of scalps at the Nordschleife.
I don’t want the interior to be so overtly decorated, but playing it safe with black feels like a missed opportunity. So I split the difference with a tasteful tan and choose a suitably technical wheel design that befits the engineering-led approach to the P39’s design.
Were we ordering one of the first 10 cars, our example would have come with a special ‘RML 40th anniversary’ trim package, complete with bespoke badging, embroidery and subtle red detailing – the precise hue of which has been the source of considerable debate among its makers.
Michael Mallock, son of founder Ray Mallock and now head of the Bespoke division, says that, irrespective of the colour and trim chosen, all 39 owners of the P39 can be sure they have bought one of the most capable and technically impressive road cars on the market.
“But the key with this project,” he adds, “and any vehicle that we do with Bespoke – previously and going forward – is that it’s all usable performance.
“The main reason that the P39 has the dynamics it does is that I hate driving performance cars on the road.
