21 Jun 06
The Azure even handles, after a fashion. Its grip won't ripple your cheeks like a mid-engined supercar and if you want it to change direction in a hurry you're going to be all out of luck, but its steering is fluid, meaty and deliciously precise, its body control is notably good and if you do push it harder out of a corner than it cares to go, its only vice is a perhaps unrivalled ability to incinerate its inside rear tyre.
I found all this out, you understand, only after Lake Como had become a distant memory and I was up among the Alps. I wouldn't say tortuous mountain roads were exactly a natural environment for the Azure, but it coped well and with generally benevolent indifference.
But I soon realised that its preferred habitat was the lakeside, where it could suck admiration off every pavement and allow its lucky occupants to bathe in a cabin that treads perfectly the fine line that exists between opulence and ostentation.
In the end I liked the Azure rather more than I had expected. I liked the way it looked and the way it drove too. It is also a unique proposition in the marketplace, at least until Rolls-Royce's convertible Phantom makes an appearance next year.
That's another encounter I don't intend to miss.
