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Don't misunderstand me; it's certainly not tardy, it's just that I was expecting my face to peel away and end up all over the rear window. But I've still got it. It's an easy car to operate.

The DSG gearbox - a twin-clutch job like the Audi TT's - works superbly via fingertip controls. The pedal offset is not too debilitating. The ride is a bit hard over sharp bumps but the seats are good, the aircon works and there's a radio. My complaints are all predictable ones.

Firstly, there are huge blindspots. One is created by the otherwise excellent door mirrors, which perfectly obscure the road through tight bends.

And trying to look over your shoulder at an angled junction is like relying on David Blunkett to tell you if anything's coming.

You really need to send a man ahead with a red flag. Finally, at two metres it's just too wide. Anything much wider than a 911 becomes intimidating on the winding roads where you want to drive a really powerful car.

It may have 1,001 horsepower but, at times, half of it feels rendered useless by girth.

So in many ways the Veyron is a dinosaur, prey to the same deficiencies that have rendered so many of its forebears virtually extinct; the way the pursuit of ultimate power and speed generates weight, bulk and complexity until the whole philosophy implodes into uselessness.

But at the same time it is a marvellous and very special thing. Maybe one to be appreciated on an intellectual rather than practical level, much in the same way that no one actually eats caviar to stay alive.

It's a great technical achievement: the world's fastest car, which is still pretty conclusive in any pub debate.

Over a decade ago, in the era of the F1, the Ferrari F40 and the fated Jaguar XJ220, people were saying that the era of the supercar had passed, that the point had been made, in the way it had been with the moon landings.

But it wasn't over then. And, I suspect, it's still not over now. Good.