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For a place of such natural beauty, the Faroes receive little attention. Part of the problem is their remote location. We left London on Friday, drove to Perth and then on to Aberdeen, where we caught an overnight ferry to the Shetlands. "Is that Lamborghini real?" asked a ferryman. "We thought it might have been one of them replicas."

After eights hours in the Shetlands we caught a second and surprisingly plush ferry to the Faroes. Next year, the local Smyril Line will open a direct ferry route from Scotland, which will make life easier. There are plenty of flights, but a Gallardo might fall foul of hand baggage restrictions.

As a long-distance tool, the Lambo is surprisingly capable. Gone are the days when it was the automotive equivalent of a poster-boy dunderhead - pretty but useless. The purists might bemoan the company's German ownership but there can be no denying that it has resulted in a much better Lamborghini. Everything works.

After the Shetlands - a place so grey it looks like it's been desaturated - the Faroes adds a welcome dash of colour. Quaint wooden buildings are dotted around Torshavn's pretty harbour and many boast roofs made of turf. "When we want to cut the grass, we just throw up a couple of sheep," says a local, half-joking. The vibe is laid-back and surprisingly cool - very Scandinavian.

The local jet-wash is run by Jakup Borg, who plays in midfield for the Faroes football team. "I had a month-long trial with Liverpool in 1998," he says. "I've also played for the Faroes against Germany but Michael Ballack wouldn't swap shirts, his attitude was, 'Who are you?'"

Like many of the Faroese we've met, Borg seems content. "There's no crime," he says. "Tórshavn is a good place to be - there are eight bars and four nightclubs - but some of the other communities feel like they're stuck in the Sixties or Seventies."

Our Lamborghini has been disparagingly described as a 'footballer's car', but this is to do it a disservice. Sitting soaking on the garage floor, it rekindles memories of the original Countach, before it was polluted by wings and scoops. It's a refreshingly pure design that works well from every angle, hood up or down.

But such beauty is not achieved without compromise and Borg laughs out loud when I open the boot. The cubby in the nose is so small that my luggage for a week's trip has been reduced to two tatty carrier bags. From day three onwards, I'll be forced to wear my underpants inside out.

After posing for an inevitable picture, we leave the affable Borg to his labour and head for the hills. The scenery in the Faroe Islands is different to that of northern Scotland or the Shetland Islands. It's much more aggressive, with steep gradients and jagged coastlines, as if some other-worldly being has nibbled at giant chunks of earth and left the rest to rot.

In the early '90s the Faroes government built tunnels that link most of the 18 islands. Most traffic now takes the underground route which has left some of the more dramatic roads deserted. The one that runs northwest from Tórshavn is seminal. Stretching for some 20km, it criss-crosses the hillside before plunging down the valley. Wide and beautifully surfaced, it's supercar nirvana.