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Then floor the throttle implausibly early, and feel it twang its way out of the corner with a violence akin to the three-dimensional axes of space and time and mass being warped into some vortex as yet unexplored by science.

But that's not all it does. Four-wheel drive, ESP, clever aero and cleverer tyres are all part of the technical mix that mean ordinary people like me can keep this cosmic show on the road, but the biggest helper is the amazing DSG transmission.

You just never need worry about messing up a shift and grinding cogs, or unsettling the car, or generating 64-valves'-worth of shrapnel.

The clutches, first time and every time, are your best protectors and friends. You can bang through gears like in F1, or you can dribble through traffic like it's an automatic Corolla.

But to make a gearbox that can do that with all that power behind it, or to have driveshafts and brake calipers and suspension wishbones that don't instantly wilt into plasticine, well that takes weight.

To keep it all cool - imagine four turbos aglow cherry-red - and to chill the air as the engine gulps it, well all that demands a mass of radiators.

And then there's the challenge, which nearly eluded Bugatti's best engineers and testers, of keeping the whole rig on the ground at 250mph, fastidiously moulding the flow of air when all that radiated heats wants to do is spiral out of control.

So the weight nearly became self-defeating - for every part they strengthened against the forces, another became even more stressed.

And it's not like they could turn to, say, Formula One for answers. This thing is way heavier and torquier. And no F1 car has a cabin lined in fragrant leather and switchgear like the crown jewels.