Netherlands-based Donkervoort Automobielen has been hand-building sports cars for nearly 40 years, and they’ve all been based around the same original vehicle: the Lotus Seven. Much like Caterham Cars, the company that bought the rights to the Seven, Donkervoort felt that Lotus founder Colin Chapman’s open-wheeled two-seater design was a fantastic platform for bombing around corners and jumping off the line. Since the late 1970s, Donkervoort has built more than a dozen different versions and editions of the platform. The last time the power-to-weight-ratio-obsessed Dutchmen put out a car with the designation RS in its name was in 2005, with the D8 270 RS, with which Donkervoort ran a Nürburgring lap in 7:14.8. The company now is releasing another RS version of the D8, which once again makes pretty much any other car with that two-letter designation seem tame. Earlier this year, Donkervoort laid out a plan to release three new vehicles: GTO-S, GTO-RS, and GTO-R. The Sport (S) is designed to offer a?slightly?more comfortable experience and is the least expensive; the RS is the more aggressive roadgoing car; and the R is purely for the track. The touring-focused GTO-S is already on the streets, and now comes the GTO-RS.

To make the RS, Donk bettered numerous aspects of the GTO. In collaboration with Bosch, Donkervoort says engine management has been optimized on the Audi-sourced 2.5-liter turbocharged inline-five for better torque across the rev range. T...