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On this basis, I'd be similarly dismissive of the Bugatti Veyron. I mean it's on sale now at £840,000. And, for that money, you could buy a house.

If there were any consistency in my life, if I had even a shred of Jamesishness, I would have refused a test drive.

Why bother? It's too expensive. I'm not going to dangle such a thing under the noses of the readers knowing full well their chances of having enough money to buy one are about the same as being gnawed to death by a platoon of woodlice.

I didn't, though. I packed my little suitcase and went to Italy, where I was presented with quite the most stunning piece of automotive engineering ever created. (This opinion may change at some future date but I'm sticking with it for now).

I mean, take the flappy-paddle, seven-speed gearbox. I spoke to the man who headed up the project at Ricardo and he said he'd never done anything so difficult. Quite an admission from someone whose products are used by F1 teams.

"Oh, F1 is nothing," he said. "They don't have anything like the power of a Bugatti and only have to last two hours. The one in the Veyron has to work for 10 or 20 years."

Small wonder it took 50 people five years to make the damn thing work.

It wasn't just the gearbox, either. It was the engine too, that massive quad turbo W16, and the aerodynamics as well.

The team had been given the shape of the body and told there could be no alterations. They'd been told too that it must do 400kph and must produce 1,000bhp.

They weren't fighting to beat Mercedes or BMW. These guys were fighting to beat heat, and friction and lift. They were fighting nature.

And how did motoring commentators react? Instead of cheering them on and offering support, we laughed at the many and very public setbacks.

Well, the laugh's on us now because they've made it work. When that massive rear spoiler begins to rise on specially cooled hydraulic rams, you can feel the back of the car being pressed into the road.

It's not that it can do 252mph, it's the way it manages to do 252 so effortlessly that impresses me most. At high speed, a McLaren F1 feels like the Bell X-1, a mass of vibrations and terror. At high speed, the Bugatti feels like an Airbus - solid, planted, safe.

Watch the Bugatti Veyron video