2014 Ferrari F12

It in progress, as completely the top road trips do, in a traffic jam on the M6 just outside Stoke. For when the Good Lord gives you three V12 supercars, a hunting lodge in the Highlands and the promise of decent weather for three living, he must furthermore collapse you a monster restricted access on a mainly unpicturesque section of Midlands motorway. A beauty, this one was: a two-hour, inch-by-inch crawl down the outside lane, in imitation of a dairy lorry had overturned, dumping thousands of gallons of milk across the road. As the Highways Intervention dispatched a crack team of kittens in hi-vis jackets to defeat the carriageway clean, this afforded greatly time to analyze exactly how greatly power and fastness were being stymied by a not many spilt pints of semi-skimmed.

Ferrari F12 Berlinetta, Lamborghini Aventador Roadster and Aston Martin Rout, then: 36 cylinders and 20 litres of displacement, not a turbocharger between them, a combined appraise well north of 800,000. The final three effortlessly aspirated V12 supercars on the globe, at a complete loss short-lived, the Ferrari and Aston quietly draining their tanks of super unleaded, the Lambo chuntering irascibly and irregularly pretending to mislay first gear. Nearly 2,000 horsepower on tap, and nowhere to take advantage of it. Alanis Morrissette would have declared it ironic.