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Oh and when you change down a gear, there's a succession of pops and cackles from the exhaust, like devilish laughter. It doesn't spit flame, but you just know it should. The figures look like this: 0-62mph in 4.2 seconds and 183mph. That's not all. After a few miles you're in thrall to the fact that this is more, far more, than a powertrain car.

The Maserati Cambiocorsa gearbox is at the back, and weight distribution is slightly rear-biased. And though it uses Quattroporte suspension, the wheelbase is significantly shorter than any Maser on sale now, the subframes are bolted solidly to the body instead of through bushes and the steering rack is more direct, the springs and anti-roll bars are stiffer, and the dampers don't bother with the wobbly and ineffective Skyhook adaptive nonsense - they're in the tensed-and-ready position all the time.

There are 20-inch P Zeroes, 285-35 section at the back, and downforce thanks to an underfloor venturi.

So it was built to handle. They could afford to make the springs stiff because they've got a very stiff body to mount them to. The screen pillars, roof, aft pillars and rear wings are a single carbon lay-up, providing huge stiffness. The front wings, door skins and bonnet are carbon too, for lightness. The upper carbon structure is bonded to a steel lower platform, borrowed from the Quattroporte again but shortened and modified.

It works. Well, it does on home turf at least. Alfa is letting outsiders drive it only at the company's own Balocco test track (boo hiss), but it's a long and interesting circuit and I'm having a ball.

The 8C is confident and balanced, and grippy as anything. Of course it understeers on very tight bends if you go in too fast, so the right way is to be cautious on the way in and incautious with the throttle on the way out. Kill the ESP and it's a real drifter. In faster stuff, it's reassuring but balanced and very much alive.

The brake pedal has an overly long travel and on this glassy-smooth surface it was hard to judge how much steering feel there was, but I suspect not as much as the best of this world's mid- and rear-engined cars. But when you think about Astons and AMG SLs and M6s and Corvettes, I'd say the 8C is more fun.

It should be. For a start it's ruddy expensive at £111,000. Two, the set-up doesn't leave much room for comfort. It slaps hard onto bumps, even things like manhole covers. But on the other hand, once the bump has gone, it's really history. The related Quattroporte gets all wrapped up in shuddering and aftershocks. The Alfa just deals with it. That's partly because the carbon-and-steel body is so stiff.

We mustn't be too kind to the 8C Competizione. It always feels like the rushed job it is, in the sense that it hasn't had the rough edges painstakingly worked off like a 911 Turbo or even a Gallardo has. But in the right circumstance, that's what makes it special.

Alfa is being canny keeping it as a limited edition, with just 41 coming to Britain out of a world total of 500. Every one is sold. Ah well, before long they'll announce a fresh run of a Spider version, so if you want to be part of that hysteria, make yourself known to Alfa now.