" The car's going too fast. Dab the brakes, get the back out and drive it round on the power ... "

It's upon you quicker than you thought. The car's going too fast. Dab the brakes, get the back out and drive it round on the power. All the time listening to the revs rise and the gearbox scream.

A man trimming his hedge steps out to see what's making all the noise. He stares in disbelief as your 206 WRC takes a wide line into the hairpin outside his house and then twitches as it crests the next rise before rushing down to a narrow pidge.

Hang on a minute. I haven't seen him in the game before. This isn't a comfy chair. It's a Motordrive bucket seat and I wish I'd taken the time to adjust the six point Sabelt harnesses properly. Another hairpin like that and I'll be speaking an octave higher.

I'm sat alongside former British National Rally Champion and the force behind Dimma UK, Terry Pankhurst. We're in the Dimma 206 WRC RS - the name I've given the most amazing hybrid yet built. Anywhere.

"The objective was to build something that would be equally at home on a special stage, track day or McDonalds Drive Thru ... "

It's part Peugeot 206, part WRC car, part Sapphire RS Cosworth and completely bloody brilliant. If you saw the previous issue of PGTi, you'd have seen our exclusive sneak photos of this car being built. Since then Terry braved the coldest winter nights and finished the job. The result is a triumph and truly multi-functional. It's been designed to proclaim that Dimma is back with a vengeance. It's also been designed to give people a unique opportunity to own a very special vehicle. And it's been designed to give Terry a lot of fun.

So what's the big deal? Let's recap. Dimma UK is the British importer for Dimma styling products from Belgium. However, it's more than just a distributor. The UK division has contributed to the design of several of the bodykits. More importantly, it's built some very special cars to show off the body styling and the company's expertise.

Alcantara dash may add a touch of luxury but this is a real racer at heart and as such, the whole dash is fitted with a quick release system for emergency access ...

First up was the Dimma 205 Cosworth in the late '80s. That was followed by the Dimma 309 Mi16 and the Clio Cosworth.

The New car is the fourth hypid in this dynasty and shares several features with it's predecessors: four wheel drive, Dimma wide body and plenty of excitement.

For Terry it just comes naturally. "I build these cars because I've been a car freak since I was a boy", he told us. "I've always had the desire to drive anything with four wheels quickly".

The company has been in business since 1986, offering cutting edge body styling for French performance cars. "But I'm a driver", Terry explained, "so I need a car to perform as good as it looks."

"I don't believe in styling for styling's sake. Cars need to function properly, which is why our cars look as if they came from the factory. They still work properly."

Now despite an obvious need for speed, Dimma UK has never offered major tuning conversions. "There are tuning companies that do it better than we could, so we leave that to them," he continued. However, may of his customers who bring their cars for styling will have engine tuning as well.

A good example is a customer with a 205 Gti. He'd added a Turbo Technics conversion and Dimma's wide arch kit. He loved the car but inevitably wanted more power. During a conversation, Terry felt extra horsepower would spoil the car unless it had four wheel drive to cope. And if it's 4WD, you'll need even more power to make it entertaining. And that's how the first 205 Dimma Cosworth was born.

Terry enjoyed building the car and obviously couldn't wait to drive it. However, he's aware of its significance. "Somebody has to build cars like these," he said. "We all want to see special cars and it's the responsibility of companies like us to build them."

In all honesty, Dimma builds landmark cars. What you are seeing here is historic. It's taken the tuners art to the next level and invites other companies to have a go if they're hard enough…

"Ferrari doesn't go racing to make money. It's about image, prestige and the spin-offs," Terry explained. "It sells 360 Modenas and baseball caps off the back of F1 and we're the same. When we built the 205 it needed a special fuel tank to clear the axle. We put an ally fuel cap on it and the customers started asking for them. That's how the Dimma Fuel Cap came about and we're still selling them."

Above:Escort Cosworth Mountune prepared engine has been fully blueprinted and as such is good for 385bhp at 22psi of boost... Below:T3 Ceramic Turbo runs 28psi.

The company also built a shed load of Dimma kitted 205 Gtis. And it's hoping the 206 WRC RS will encourage 206 Hdi or Gti-6 owners to have all or part of this car. You could have the universal roof vent for example, or you could have a car that looks just like this one for six grand. Makes you think…

As a respected company in the tuning business, Terry acknowledges that people expect him to come up with radical projects. It gives something to aim for and stops the market stagnating. "Even we don't make money on these projects, we have a part to play in the scene," he said.

The concept for the 206 WRC RS was born in a transit van. Terry was driving to Dimma Belgium to collect some parts. He knew it had a bodyshell that was used to develop the WRC kit. "I bet I could fit it in the van," he thought. He could.

By coincidence, there was a BMW V8 sitting at home and initially it was scheduled to go in the Peugeot. However, Terry really wanted 4WD and knew a Cosworth powertrain was the more logical way to go.

He didn't just want to repeat the 205 or Clio projects. Rather he wanted to push the envelope and decided to make it a competitive motorsport machine, complete with Mountune rally engine and Quaife transmission.

The shell was home in Cheshire by October and on the third of November the floor was gone. He then bought a Sapphire Cosworth bodyshell and cut the floorpan out of that, too. He started to join the two halves in a job that took 20 weeks and about a 100 hours.

When Ford built the Escort Cosworth it cut a Sapphire floorpan in half and shortened it 3" to suit the Escort shell. So that's what Terry did, only he shortened it 7". By doing this, the Peugeot would have all the correct mounting points chassis rails and transmission tunnel for its Ford mechanicals.

An additional job was to move the front wheels forward by 18mm by moving the anti-roll bar mounts. This gives the car a longer wheelbase, identical to the works 206 WRC and this was vital since the car has genuine works front arches.

The Sapphire floorpan sits 5" higher in the bodyshell than the original 206 floor. The aim was to lower the body so the car looks low yet retains full suspension travel for rally events. With the bottom of the sills now being the lowest point 3" were taken off the sills and new ones were fabricated from 2mm plate inside the car to strengthen the shell. These are what you now step over when entering the cockpit.

An FIA approved OMP roll-cage was then welded into the shell and additional pick-ups were created to the front turrets and rear suspension points.

If your thinking all this sounds rather ambitious, it's nothing to Terry. As an engineer at Ford and while climbing his the Group 1 rally championship, he built plenty of rally cars. All he did was apply that knowledge to this car for strength and safety. Yet the complete car only weighs 1215kg - 15kg less than the minimum weight limit for WRC.

Since the objective was to build something that would be equally home on a special stage, track day or McDonald's drive thru, he didn't want to cut corners.

With the shell complete, the mechanicals were bolted in, the engine was a Recce-spec unit from Mountune. It was originally built for Ford Motorsport but was never used. It had been blueprinted and balanced. The head has competition studs and gasket. The turbo is a ceramic T3 running at 22psi through an Escort Cosworth intercooler. The water injection is in place but isn't used as yet.

Fuel is provided by light blue injectors, which are controlled by a Pectel board in the Level 8 ECU. There's a Pectel monitor in the car and no Cossie engine would be complete without a 3Bar map sensor.

The 2.5" stainless steel exhaust was fabricated by Terry. Since ground clearance is an issue, the floorpan has been modified to allow it to pass over the rear axle. The system incorporates one Cherry Bomb-style centre silencer and a silenced tailpipe. While this might seem noisy it passed 105dB scrutineering at a recent track day.

The four-paddle clutch is from AP Racing and synchronises with the 5 speed, close ratio, dog box from Quaife.

The front differential retains the standard 3:6:1 gear ratio but has a Quaife limited slip diff. The drive shafts are standard while the Escort Cosworth prop shaft needed to be shortened 4".

The 7.5" rear diff is from a 2WD RS500 and had a plated LSD to allow it to take more power. The centre diff is another Quaife unit and gives a 60/40% power split so it's tail happy: "I like that driving style," Terry confirmed.

To temper such a driving style are a pair of 312mm front discs with competition Brembo four pot callipers. These are the biggest that would fit under 15" wheels, an option that Terry wanted to retain for gravel rallies.

With Escort Cosworth rear brakes, Terry had fitted a twin master cylinder-type balance bar pedal box. This allows him to adjust the front/rear brake bias by altering the pivot point on the balance bar. There's no servo because he's all man.

The suspension is also competition spec, with remote reservoir, two-way adjustable Proflex shocks up front. The rear units are Ohlins coilover units with remote reservoirs.

All the suspension geometry is fully adjustable and the rear suspension arms are strengthened GpA items.

The coil springs are currently gravel spec but the ride height has been set for tarmac. With the raised floor the car still has 4" of suspension travel even at this setting proved remarkably comfortable. Very few road imperfections came through to the cabin and it was more comfortable than many road cars we've experienced.

The 8 x 18" Raceline wheels are magnesium and fitted with 225/35 road tyres at present. However, it'll soon wear slicks when Terry takes the car to Barbados for a rally event.

With the rear axle where the fuel tank would normally sit, Terry installed a new one in the safest place - the middle of the roll cage. It's a baffled ally tank with a swirl pot to avoid fuel surge from the high G-Forces. It's surrounded by foam and encased inside a second ally box. The swirl pot is fed by two feeder pumps and is drawn by a high pressure GpA pump. The principle is to ensure that no matter how hard you corner, there will always be fuel, since the main pump will expire without it.

All the fuel and brake lines are Aeroquip and have been routed through he car for safety.

Once this impressive list of mechanical components were installed, the body could be dressed. Where the Dimma 206 WRC uses glass fipe panels for the road, Terry's car needed steel arches for greater strength. He managed to locate a set of works panels and fitted them to all four corners. The bumpers, however are composite items from Dimma since they were modelled from the works cars anyway. The rear wing is again a works part and is carbon fibre, although Dimma's composite wing is less than half the price. "The rear wing was about £2000 from Peugeot, while the complete Dimma WRC kit is £1750 including VAT [excluding rear wing]" we were informed.

The bonnet is a copy of the works panel. The original heater intake was blanked off and new vents were welded in. The Cosworth heater is now fed through the roof vent. There are plans to perhaps produce a WRC style bonnet for 206 owners in the future.

The works-style front grille was fabricated from stainless steel by Geoff Turton at GNT Fapication in Widnes. He also did all the ally welding in the car and constructed the fuel tank.

The graphics mimic the 2002 works rally cars and are available to order (£300), or you might simply want the Dimma windscreen decal (£10 from dimma.com).

The Motordrive seats have been re-trimmed by Dimma in Alcantara to match the dash. The dash itself is quick-release to access the wiring in a hurry. It houses an SPA stepped motor rev counter with integral digital speedo in the main binnacle. It can be accurately calibrated, regardless of the wheel size and incorporates shift lights and an acceleration timer.

The only other instruments in the dash are a fuel gauge and some warning lights. The primary readouts are provided by the Pectel monitor which sits in the console. It can record intake, water, oil and turbo temperatures, as well as fuel and oil pressures, etc. It also datalogs, so parameters can be reviewed after a stage.

The steering wheel is a little piece of history since it was used by Mr McRae while at Ford. It houses a button for the launch control, which is an adjustable system that allows the engine to be held at a preset rev limit before the clutch is released.

When we photographed the car, it had just come the rolling road and had completed eight shake down laps at Oulton Park. The engine was measured at 385bhp and a top speed of 140mph was seen down the main straight.

The car incredibly flexible. It's suitable for all manner of disciplines and can be built to all sorts of budgets. Terry estimates it would cost a minimum of £35,000 to build another 206 WRC RS. That would utilise a very second-hand Cossie 4x4 and the cheapest 206 you could find. The mechanical spec wouldn't be quite what you see here, but it should look the same.

Alternatively, the sky's the limit. You could go rear-wheel drive, fit 500bhp RS500 engine or try for a full WRC-spec Escort engine and drivetrain. Alternatively, you could fit air-con, leather seats, hi-fi and make it one of the baddest toys in town. "The advantage of using Cosworth components is that there are so many parts available, so the final specification (and cost) is totally elastic," Terry said.

And yes, the queue starts here. Get to the back of the line!