One of the most interesting cars at the LA Auto Show last November wasn’t at the show at all – it was hiding in a small, off-site studio a few downtown streets away from the main event. Known simply as ‘Fast Eddy’, this superbly proportioned and crafted machine – a visual greatest hits compilation guest starring cues from the Corvette, McLarens and possibly even a little Ferrari, too – is the creation of Aria Group, a normally super secretive SoCal builder of concept cars, trucks and military hardware. Oh, and they also build the carbon fibre bodies for the Porsche 911 reimagined by Singer, so they know a thing or two about building quality supercars.

Notionally this car was created to celebrate the firm’s 21st birthday. A big cake would have been a lot cheaper. But it wouldn’t have satisfied the secondary purpose of the model, to see if people would buy a production version of Aria’s own vision of the perfect supercar. To find out more about the project, we went behind the scenes at Aria HQ to speak with Aria boss, Clive Hawkins and lead designer Nicholas David – both Brits – to see where this project came from – and who or what exactly is ‘Fast Eddy’…