Veritas RSIII news - Veritas RSIII: now on sale, still scary - 2009

See more Veritas RSIII pics

Hammond may have driven it a year ago, but the insane Veritas RSIII is finally going on sale to the general, unwashed public.

Veritas says it has already sold five of its planned run of 30 RSIIIs, and expects to deliver its first cars in January. Prices start at 342,000 Euro - or around £300,000. Ouch.

You get a whole lump of speedsterish fastness for your Euros, though. The RSIII is powered by the 5.0-litre V10 from the BMW M5, putting out 500bhp through a seven-speed sequential manual gearbox.

That's good for a 0-62mph dash of 3.2 seconds (yowch) and a top speed ‘in excess of 215mph' (yowch, again).

And then there are those looks, those scary, scary looks.

"What counts for the design of a good sports car is the proportions and we have placed great emphasis on these," says Veritas designer Michael Söhngen. "Even at first sight, the Veritas RS III produces an unmistakeable overall impression."

We can't argue with the ‘unmistakeable overall impression' bit. You're really not going to confuse with anything else, are you? Apart from... no, we're not even going to go there.

So, you with your hypothetical three-hundred-and-something grand, where's it going: this, or the Lexus LF-A? Or, er, six Nissan GT-Rs?

Now watch Hammond muller the RSIII around our test track: