VISSER DU PLESSIS coaxes the clutch pedal upward and the engine revs rise. It’s a coarse, almost harsh growl, rather like a giant hacksaw ripping a 44-gallon drum in two, and there’s a metallic quality which is so palpable I can almost taste it. I can feel it too, and a thrummy, zingy high-frequency vibration passes through the passenger seat of the Peugeot 207 as it edges forward.

IMAGE GALLERY HERE

And then, having just changed to second gear, Visser nails the throttle. There’s an explosion of sound and motion along with a series of shrieks from under the bonnet. Burpp . . . 
buurp . . . buuurpp – in a vista-shrinking blur we’re into fourth and still accelerating hard, careering along a dirt road that twists and turns and duck and dives, pockmarked here and there by dips and troughs, some filled with mud red water.

It feels like we’re on a rollercoaster ride, the car rising and falling on long-travel suspension, Visser’s gloved hand a frenzy of motion as he pulls and pushes on a circular metal ball just an inch from the rim of the deeply-dished steering wheel. This is the column shift for the six-speed gearbox, not to be confused with a wand-like handbrake lever rising up from between the seats to almost meet it.

But that’s just peripheral stuff. Front of mind is survival and I’m thinking: no waaay!!! This is already completely insane and we’re only about 500 metres from where we left the crew who just seconds before had plugged me into the intercom and strapped me down with a six-point safety harness.

Visser said something about just warming up, I recall, but I’m no longer sure whether he meant himself or the 2.0-litre four-cylinder non-turbo engine mounted transversely under the bonnet. If that makes it sound like a hopped up Peugeot 207 then nothing could be further from the truth. This is a serious 4x4 rally machine with a fancy sequential gearbox and trick differential technology that’s likely to cost at least R3 million to replace. Why, then, is Visser driving it with such venom?

We’re into a tightening left-hander and he literally stands on the huge brake pedal and simultaneously bangs the lever down the box. For a moment I think he’s got it completely wrong and we’re about to shoot over the foot-high earth bank at the road’s edge and into the dry mielies beyond. But I’m mistaken: as we reach what looks like the point of no return, he tugs the handbrake lever for a fraction of a second and with the weight of the car already shifted forward onto the nose, the tail whips round a metre or two and he steps on the gas again, shooting us out the corner and onto the next straight, with a gateway approaching fast in the distance.

I realise I’m clutching the edges of my seat tightly, and I’ve hunkered down so that, despite my lanky frame, I’m peering at the largely standard Peugeot 207 facia. My eyeballs are getting a mix of the frenetic interior action – a flurry of feet and hands – and what’s going on outside – a cacophony of noise and flying red sand in our wake and a blur of mielie fields.