Dan Trent: Faster than an Enzo and ten times as cool

Still not convinced? Well, Clarkson didn't 'get' it when he drove it on Top Gear, dismissing it as "an Enzo in a fat suit" before admitting it was one of the most difficult cars he'd ever driven and demonstrating the fact by spinning it in a cloud of tyre smoke. That alone underlines its appeal to me.

The behind-the-scenes politics that saw Ferrari gift the foundations of the car named after its founder to Maserati to create a race-winning GT car must have been fascinating. Homologation rules meant to do this a number of roadgoing versions had to be built too, the loose interpretation of this edict resulting in a truly spectacular machine. It'd be awesome on its own; garnished with a layer of intrigue like that it just becomes even more fascinating.

Clarkson is probably right about one thing. I imagine it's an absolute pain in the proverbial to drive on the road. And if you were brave enough to take one where it belonged and attend a track day you'd better damned well be the fastest thing there. Because if you're not people won't be blaming the car; a tenth faster than the Enzo in the Stig's hands is symbolic but bagging a succession of driver, manufacturer and team titles in the FIA GT and GT1 championships is rather more emphatic.

It'd take some brass ones to drive on the road, and not just because of the impracticalities, size, value and sheer ostentatiousness of what is undeniably a racing car with numberplates. But I love the idea of driving up the M1 to Silverstone, putting in a few laps, having a brew and then driving back again. Gentleman racing type stuff, rebooted for the early 2000s hypercar era before things all went hybrid powered and over-complicated. The MC12 is raw, rude, uncouth and yet still somehow more elegant and glamorous than the Enzo on which it is based. Very Maserati.

So how much to add one of these to the dream fleet? Joe Macari has two advertised on PistonHeads; a road car and a GT1 version with race winning provenance. Prices for both are listed at a nominal £9,999,999, which seems rather steep even for a car of this rarity and about 10 times what you'd pay for an Enzo. Consider it POA dressed with a suitably attention grabbing number and no response to an email asking what the actual value might be. No matter; there's another road car in the signature white over blue coming up for sale at the Sotheby's Duemila Ruote auction and presented (like the 430 cars, 150 bikes and 60 boats) with no reserve. Taking place in Milan on November 25 it sounds like quite the sale. And unless things go properly silly it might even undercut the price listed by Macari's outfit.

Photography coutesy of Pistonheads.