Unfortunately, it's not a perfect and fair world which is why photographer Jon Hrusa and I got to drive the car and you only get to read about it. I further explained that I could not, by any stretch of the imagination, be classed as a motoring journalist and would be unlikely to eulogise about things like torque and kilowatt output, even if I knew what they meant. Within days we were at Jaguar Bryanston, where the management kindly made an XK8 available and had the good grace to pretend that they thought we knew what we were doing.
Sports cars are strange things.
They are generally far too powerful to be driven on suburban roads, far too small to be of any practical use and are extremely expensive relative to saloon cars. Surface area wise, the less you get, the more you pay. A sports car, like a good pair of shoes, says a lot about its owner. For example, the now ubiquitous Porsche makes a clear lifestyle statement. Unless you look as though you've stepped out of the pages of a fashion magazine, you have no more business driving a Porsche than you have wearing a Speedo on Camps Bay beach.