IN THIS FEATURE The Gordon connection Race and street car rolled into one More money than brains

Now that I've got one, it's no less amazing. It's fast (0-60 in 3.43 seconds) but its stopping power is colossal. The best elements of a race car and a street car are all built into it. I reckon just 5 percent of owners can drive this car to its potential. Sometimes when you go into corners really, really fast it feels as if there are men with huge ropes pulling you to keep the thing straight. If I was a religious person, it would feel like the hand of God having actually came down, smacked me in the face, and sent me on my way.

The few times I've managed to take the car to my personal limit, maybe a little bit over, it's always responded amazingly well, but it's sort of like having sex with an aerobics instructor: you've worked your ass off and she's says: "OK, you done? Because I have another appointment." I don't think there are many people that could find the limits of this car on the road.

Stopping power is colossal

Driving is a serious business in this car, but it's got a softy side to it. One minute you can be tearing through the hills, hooligan stuff. The next minute you can take the wife in it, you can park it. I think the Mercedes-McLaren is the perfect compromise between road car and racer.

When people ask me to compare the SLR to the McLaren F1 I tell them that the F1 is the greatest car of the 20th century. There's a great deal of satisfaction in that when you drive it, knowing this is the best, the fastest production car in the world. Gordon got it right from the get-go. No brag, just fact. The SLR seems a more mature F1.