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This opinion rather baffled the salesman. "But it's $43,000," he said incredulously. Precisely, that makes it £23,800 and that, for a supercharged V8 muscle car is amazing, really. "Yes," said our man, "but our car only produces 415bhp which is a lot less than you get from Shelby or Saleen." To his astonishment, I wasn't bothered.

415bhp endows the Roush 'Stang with a 0-60 time of 4.9secs and a top speed of something or other. No one's tested it. But I can tell you the speedo only reads to 140. So in a straight line, it's not that epic. It is, however, when you get to a corner because it's lowered, firmed up and injected with a bit of beef. It's 15 per cent stiffer than normal and to be honest, so was I.

There's no finesse, it's not like a BMW in any way, but for sticking the tail out and keeping it there using nothing but the throttle, it's in the same league as that other colonial upstart, the Monaro VXR. This begs a question, then. Would it be possible to import such a car to Britain?

I'm not talking about the technicalities because, of course, you simply put it on a ship, pay some tax and within a few weeks, it'll be outside your house, ready and road legal. No, I'm talking about the sociological issues. Would it be possible to import this car... without causing all your friends to die laughing. At you.

Tell someone you drive a Mustang and no matter what it is, you'll come across as a bit of a local DJ. We think of it in terms of Bullitt. Everyone else thinks we look like we may be married to our sister. And do you really want a car with two stripes down the bonnet? And exhausts which sound like Katrina?

In America, this works. But that's because they are so much more aggressive than we are. They gave the world KFC. We gave the world the cream tea. And I suspect driving a Roush Mustang here would be like dipping a chicken drumstick into strawberry jam.

And then there's the politics. This car means you are aligning yourself with US policies. You're driving around saying you support the war in Iraq and the strategy in Afghanistan. Maybe you do. But I don't.

So why, you may be wondering, do I own a Ford GT? That's simple. The body is British, the gearbox is British, the steering rack is from an Aston, the chassis was set up by a couple of guys from Lotus, the wheels are German and the brakes are Italian. The power is American, yes, but it's tamed and sophisticated by Europeans. It's a metaphor, in other words, for the perfect world.