Top Gear drives the mighty Singer 911

The carbon is completely covered in deep ‘Singer Silver' paint, relevant bits nickel-plate over composite, the high-tech of the construction segued into a secret covenant between car and owner. A Superman to Clark Kent make-under. Slick enough to turn appreciative heads, subtle enough to whisper loudly of taste and restraint. Seemingly perfect, but discreetly - brilliantly - wrong. The shapes and details bleed and fall into one another like the lines of a well-spoken poem, or a song well sung. It's marvellous.

Even lightly browsing the specification pornography, I was a bit excited to drive one. So when we arrive at the SVD premises in Sun Valley, CA, to find the car we've come to America to drive is in pieces, I wedge on an emergency smile and hope that people write it off as jetlag. Or possibly chronic indigestion. The 911 appears to have burst. The team from SVD have that scratchy-eyed look of too much cheap coffee and too little sleep. There's a palpable air of tension woven through the warmth of the welcome, like cheap brandy in expensive hot chocolate. And I can't help thinking this might all be about to go horribly, long-way-from-home wrong.