Burning ambition

If this one comes off, we'll eat our sweaty race helmets. Actually, scrap that. We'll eat our sweaty race helmets, race overalls and fireproof undergarments.

This is the Ronn Scorpion, and you'll forgive us for being a touch sceptical, but it does sound just a little too good to be true.

According to Texas-based Ronn Motor Company, the Scorpion is an all-carbon fibre supercar that'll hit 60mph in 3.5 seconds, return over 40mpg... and burn hydrogen all at the same time.

Yes, burn hydrogen. The Scorpion, so they say, is powered by 'fracturing water molecules' from an onboard water tank to create hydrogen, which is then mixed with petrol (in about a 40/60 split) and combusted in the 3.5-litre Honda-sourced V6.

And as if all that doesn't sound complicated enough, Ronn says the first production Scorpions will be available to customers this autumn. Quite a rapid turnaround, that.

Ronn does, quietly, concede that this ambitious deadline could slip a touch. So we'll revise our initial promise just a touch. If we see the production Scorpion within a year, race-suit dinner it is. But we're allowed salt. And ketchup.