There’s been a strong resurgence in the popularity of small, lightweight sports cars of late; tiny road-going racers with punchy engines and the kind of handling owners of bigger and heavier machines can only dream of.

Some of the cars that spring to mind include the KTM X-Bow, Artega GT, and pretty much anything with a Lotus or Caterham badge attached, but there’s soon to be a new entry in this field: Germany's Roding Roadster 23.

The Roding Roadster 23 a two seat mid-engine sports car with a carbon fiber chassis and a powerful six-cylinder turbocharged engine. As can be seen in this latest spy video of a prototype testing at the Nurburgring, the Roding is shaping up to be top sports car, and it’s got a great sounding exhaust note to boot.

The "23" in the Roding Roadster's name comes from its production volume intent: just 23 of the cars will be built initially in a special limited run due for launch in the spring of 2012.

Click here to watch the spy video in full via our YouTube page.

Once you've watched the video, click here for all the details we have so far on the Roding Roadster 23.