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life
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ryan reynolds
from buried
to unbottled
travel special:
an A to Z of
places to be
marc jacobs
– bang on
test driving
the world’s
hottest wheels
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PLUS manhattan
pub crawl
razor renegades
the new preppy
culture
the fast track
With a job most men only dream of, JP Clinging reveals what
it’s like to be a professional driver. By REBECCA TAY
O
rdinary citizens might agree that
a life spent travelling the world
and driving fast cars is a life
worth coveting. John Paul “JP”
Clinging even gets paid for it.
He’s what’s known as a “test
and development driver,” a
bridge between the makers
of exotic sports cars and their
buyers. His job is to physically
validate the technical claims
of the engineering team, and
to demonstrate what’s been
achieved to auto media, dealers
and aficionados.
One day, he might be behind the
wheel of an Audi, and another day, a
Porsche. Except for a few non-disclo-
60 m e n’s F A S H I O N sure agreements, he is not tied to any
one manufacturer. For the past three
years, however, his main employer has
been Spyker Cars N.V.
Last year, the Spyker name made it
into the mainstream news when Victor
R. Muller, ceo of the Dutch company,
bought Saab from GM. Before that,
however, Spyker was known to the
cognoscenti. “It’s a super-limited brand,”
says Clinging. “It’s the kind of car you
get when you’ve had your Ferrari and
your Lamborghini and your Bentley,
and you realize you’re looking for something a little bit more bespoke.”
Born in Ireland, Clinging, 38, was
three when his family moved to Vancouver. While he points out that it’s a city
fall 2010
that has “no real motorsport, no significant racetracks, no race teams,” such
drawbacks never deterred him from
his love of cars. As a teen, he idolized
the Porsche 959, posters on the wall
and all. At 18, he took a three-day racecar driving course. He then took out a
$5,000 bank loan to rent an F2000 for a
meet, spun it into a wall and spent two
years paying for it. While completing
a two-year marketing program at college, he competed in smaller races and
eventually landed his first paid driving
gig demo-ing Dodge Vipers.
Jobs that involve test driving for
high-performance niche brands are
never advertised. “They come to you,”
says Clinging, who, after years of racing,
special-event driving and commercial
stunt work, got a call from Spyker in
2006. He immediately said yes.
This comes as no surprise. Spyker has
been an acclaimed name since 1898,
when Jacobus and Hendrik-Jan Spijker, »
fashionmaga zine.com
photography by scott council
jp clinging with the
2010 spyker c8 laviolette at john
wayne airport, orange county
brothers from Amsterdam, launched
their first Benz-engined car. Despite
receiving recognition for quality and
innovation—Spyker was the first car
company to feature four-wheel drive—the
firm closed in 1925. In 2000, Muller
relaunched the brand with the Spyder C8.
Five years after having entered the
North American market, the company
still maintains an air of exclusivity,
producing fewer than 100 cars a year.
Selling for upwards of $245,000, each
is built to the specifications of its
owner, who can observe the assembly
process via a dedicated webcam system
known as The Spycam.
Slated for release this fall, the 2011
C8 Aileron has an automatic gearbox
option that could help stir consumer
demand. Expanding into other lifestyle
categories, the company has introduced a collection of luxury watches,
which might also help increase awareness of the brand.
Whatever growth Spyker enjoys,
Clinging is happy to be among its
go-to drivers, one of only three in
the world and the only one in North
America. While shooting a spread for
Top Gear magazine, he experienced the
thrill of driving the all-aluminum C8
Aileron—which has no traction- or stability-control systems—sustaining a drift
around an entire corner that hovered
five feet from the edge of a 100-foot cliff
in Arizona. He’s also had the kick of
keeping an all-handmade pre-production prototype, valued at more than
$3 million, parked in his own garage.
There are other glamorous aspects
to Clinging’s career. He’s driven with
Mario Andretti. He’s had a private
tour of Jay Leno’s famous garage.
He consulted on the “Need for Speed”
video game. He teaches at the Porsche
Sport Driving School in Finland and
in China. Then there was that time in
Beijing when he got to take a spin in
a 1986 Porsche 959 from the Porsche
museum—the very car that had figured
in his adolescent dreams. “I didn’t drive
it as fast as I wanted to,” he recalls,
“but I probably didn’t drive it as slow as
I should have, either.”
For all of Clinging’s high-speed
adventures, one of the questions he’s
asked most frequently is what he drives
on his own time. “I have a Jeep Grand
Cherokee,” he says, “but my usual
answer is ‘somebody else’s car.’” n
fashionmaga zine.com
Driving
on the
inside:
Clinging’s top picks
2011 SPYKER C8 AILERON
The 400-horsepower, 4.2-litre V8 engine means this newest model can
go from 0–100 km/h in 4.5 seconds. Its top speed: 300 km/h.
Starts at $263,500.
CAPARO T1
“This is essentially a street-legal Formula 1 car,”
says Clinging. Expect nothing less than race performance from the 575-horsepower, 3.5-litre V8 engine,
which can take you from 0–100 km/h in 2.5 seconds.
Starts at around $380,000.
2011 MCLAREN MP4-12C
The first car in a decade from the iconic British manufacturer, it
has a 600-horsepower, 3.8-litre V8 engine. According to Clinging,
“The last super-car, the F1, which they stopped making in the ’90s,
is still the benchmark for performance cars today.”
Starts at around $230,000.
2011 HENNESSEY
VENOM GT
“Hennessey is a car tuner in Texas that’s produced a 1,200horsepower, 2,400-pound car that is threatening to become
the fastest production car in the world,” says Clinging.
Starts at around $875,000.
2011 KOENIGSEGG AGERA
The latest model from this Swedish maker has a 910-horsepower, 4.7-litre V8 engine. Clinging calls it a “250-mph,
super-exotic, all-carbon-fibre, beautifully built car.” But it’ll
reportedly set you back more than $1 million.
fall 2010
TRAMONTANA
Powered by a 720-horsepower, 5.5-litre V12
engine, this car goes from 0–100 km/h in 3.6
seconds. Its shortcoming? “It has a fighter
airplane cockpit and it really is kind of ugly,”
says Clinging, “but the performance is astonishing.” Starts at around $670,000.
m e n’s F A S H I O N
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