There's a fair number of the population and an even bigger proportion of petrolheads who'd rate a Ferrari as the pinnacle of automotive desirability. If there's a cheaper and slightly more attainable fantasy than a fling with Jennifer Lopez, Ferrari ownership occupies as many "if I won the lottery" wish-lists as there are lotto tickets and losers. And like every A-list fantasy, the reality is never as good. Douglas Lowther knows - he's had flings with more than a few Ferraris and is less impressed with every year that passes.

"It really hit home with the launch of the 599 Fiorano," he says. "Ironically I like the look of it. It's subtle for a modern supercar. Yes, it's got its fair share of intakes and vents - all highly functional. It's an efficient package with some old-school styling cues that really work. The flying buttresses haven't been seen for years and look modern - an advancement on the buttresses of the nineteen seventies too - these ones perform an aerodynamic as well as a stylistic function, directing air into
intakes beside the rear quarter glass and no doubt they're also intended to perform as strakes, improving lateral stability in crosswinds. The whole car seems to display a great design ethos - carbon fibre is used to reduce weight and increase stiffness, not just to look racy. So I like it, right? Well, not really. It's expensive and fast but what for? What can it do that other cars can't? Of course it's not just a means of getting from a to b. But if a Ferrari can't fulfil its main function of doing this basic task faster than (almost) anything else on the road, what's the point? If you like the lines, buy the poster. Want to do a drug deal in Eastern Europe this evening and be back in time for breakfast, then gone are the days when a Ferrari is the vehicle of choice. The figures speak for themselves. The 365 GTB/4 "Daytona" was fast and heavy for its day - just like the 599 today. But with a top speed of 175 mph it was genuinely fast. The 599 is faster still but in the 30 year gap between the two models, that represents an increase of less than one mile per hour per year. Give me a daytona, a dyno, 30 years and 300 large and I'll do better. In the same period, the average family saloon has become faster by a degree that beggars belief. By my calculation, averaging the top speed of all saloon and hatchback cars available across makes, I make that a 77% increase in top speed. By way of comparison the flagship Ferrari makes 15%. It's just not fast enough. But that's not the point, right? It's the style of the delivery...... And that's the even bigger failure. You want fun, buy an Elise, buy a Caterham, buy a rust bucket of an Alfa 75 for under a thousand pounds. The 599 is still fun but the challenge has gone. In a Daytona, there's always the possibility that you won't quite make it. Near its top speed you might just take off, get it sideways at above 120, you need skills and a strong heart to keep it on the black stuff. Try the same in a 599 and the electronics will stop you spilling your load by tweaking the suspension and tuning the engine. You'll look less like an idiot (although you're still more likely to get stopped by Europol as Ferraris really have become the choice of wide-boy Eastern European drug dealers). The real danger however is falling asleep on the motorway. In a Daytona, motorway curves are high speed dramas which need skill and sweat to negotiate - no danger of falling asleep. And if you can drive like that all day, your skills probably make up for any lack of performance compared to a 599.

Doug continues, "I remember when Car magazine used to furnish the last five pages with the black and white "The Good the Bad and the Ugly". To dedicate so many pages to a no holds barred highly biased review of cars was clever. It generated pages and pages of irate and amusing letters for the reader's correspondence pages each month. Controversy was guaranteed (although that got a bit out of hand when the F40 was described as a dog"). The review of the 512BB, classified as an "interesting" sports car, was as follows: For: World's greatest engine. Looks. Against: Handling tricky at limit. Summary: Needs drivers. Yes, they made more Berlinetta Boxers than people capable of driving the car. Isn't that the way it should be? Isn't that dangerous, you might say? Any car capable of doing almost three times the national speed limit is dangerous in the wrong hands. You need all those driver aids simply because there aren't enough drivers who can drive without them. And all that's not half as dangerous as making almost every production car capable of nearly twice the legal limit."

So is Douglas Lowther a hypocrite? It's not everyone who can drive an old Ferrari at its limit all day. Keeping an eye on the instruments to prevent self-destruction is just a part of a set of skills required. Or is it a question of taste and the refusal to accept that the world has moved on. Ferrari is now just a luxury brand like any other. It has become the logical conclusion of Enzo's almost total lack of interest in his road cars. That was fine when they were just less reliable versions of the racing cars of the Scuderia. It was (most of) the clients that Enzo really despised: over moneyed, status obsessed under skilled drivers with pretensions. And that's one thing that's stayed the same - just there are more of them now...... So as ever, you want a Ferrari, then think about why. What's it for? What are you going to have to do to it to make it a functional vehicle? Because the more that changes, the one thing that stays the same are highly compromised moderately fast cars coming from Maranello that need to be finished off by owner drivers like Doug. "And even then," he says, "it's not what I'd choose if I were a drug dealer."