Well, that’s one of the weirdest things I’ve ever done in a motor car. And it wasn’t driving a 3.5-tonne 4×4 SUV round the Goodwood motor racing circuit at a fair old lick on all-terrain tyres; slip, slip sliding away… No, the true weirdness of the new Yangwang U8 (we’ll come back to that name) took place in the paddock behind the pitlane…
Sit quietly now, while I dial up VOT on the centre touch screen and dial in the number of degrees. VOT stands for Vehicle Origin Turn, or as the internet has dubbed it, tank turn. Stand on the brakes, engage drive, let go of the steering and allow the systems to hold a wetted finger to the wind.
Then, with a slight judder from the front, the view through the windscreen whirls as if you were standing in the centre of a carousel. Slowly and gently, this 5.3-metre-long, 2.05-metre-wide behemoth drives one side forward and the other side backward. The tyres squish like bubble gum and in 30 seconds it’s done a complete 360. If Sir Elton John, Elvis Presley and Nelly the Elephant had leapt out of the boot in spangly catsuits singing Men of Harlech, the effect could not be more transfixing.
