The first thing that struck me about the Bugatti Veyron was not, fortunately, the Bugatti Veyron itself. But only just.

I was standing in the middle of the small and deliberately darkened hotel courtyard when a German voice in the darkness advised me to move, 'schnell'.

The Veyron swept in and I narrowly avoided becoming the first person in history to be run over by a road car developing more than 1,000 horsepower.

That would have put me up there with that bloke who fell under the wheels of Stephenson's Rocket.

Then the lights came on, to subdued cheering, and something else struck me. The Veyron is not ridiculous.

Whenever manufacturers talk of a money-no-object ultracar, I brace myself for a welter of carbon-fibre fatuousness and broken front air dams: but here was something quite classy looking.

I still think the Bugatti grille at the front is an aberration, and it seems odd that the engine is mounted outside, like it is on a Morgan three-wheeler.

Obviously it isn't for the shy and retiring, but neither does it look like a monument to excess. It's taut, stubby and most shapely.

By the standards of its coevals it's positively discreet, and comes in a Royale-style two-tone paint job, as befitting 'the fastest car on earth with comfort you would not believe.'

Even the interior is perfectly agreeable. A bit bling, maybe, but at least made from proper materials and not plastered with pseudo space-age trim.