Has he gone? Thank Ford for that. He was starting to become more monotonous than his GT’s car alarm. You give a motoring journalist a rare gem and he immediately sees only flaws. That’s because motoring journalists have the plummest jobs on the planet: feted, plied with champagne, flown first class to Mauritius to view the latest Rolls-Royce, given Formula One world champions as assistant writers and generally spoilt rotten to the point where nothing is ever good enough.

Sending your Ford GT back because the alarm is faulty is like marching out of a five-star hotel because your bed covers haven’t been turned down. Okay, so it went off at three in the morning, but even so. It’s the quirks, the idiosyncrasies, the “unusualness” that makes these cars special. To forgo the whole experience just because of a teething problem is the height of Clarksonism.

I for one will be hanging on to my Ford GT for a considerable time, not least because I have promised 250 members of my car club, P1, that they can drive it, but also because it is destined to become a future classic, like its forerunner and inspiration the GT40.

The story of the human endeavour that went into that car is inspiring. It is a story of envy, egotism, sweat, toil and bravery. In the 1960s Henry Ford II decided that his company needed glamour and he tried to buy Ferrari. But Enzo Ferrari refused to sell. So Ford developed a car designed to humiliate the Italians on the racetrack and the GT40, one of the most evocative shapes of all time, was born.

To celebrate its 100th anniversary as a car maker, Ford decided to build a modern version of the GT40 and call it the Ford GT. That’s how Clarkson and I came to own the same car. We both yearned as youngsters to drive one, collected pictures of them and played with model replicas.

Fate has been kind and not only do I now have a real GT40 to play with, but my own Ford GT. And of course the question everyone wants to know the answer to is: how do they compare? First, let’s drive the old GT, which was named GT40 because it stood only 40in tall. Getting in is a struggle. The car was built for Le Mans; I raced only once there, in a Porsche, but the experience was not nice for someone used to open single-seaters. It was claustrophobic and unbearably hot. I was relieved when the sun went down. Not only was it cooler, but also I couldn’t see the trees rushing past at 220mph.

The GT40 is low, and the doors include part of the roof, which means that you must shut them with care if you are not to slice the top of your head off. This is not a car for people with spiky hair, or six-footers like me. I’m too lanky for it: my knees are up against the dashboard and the steering wheel is almost in my chest.

To race the GT40 at Le Mans would have been a nightmare for someone of my size, but it was this very point that made the GT40 a winner, because size equals speed. The tiny frontal area made it slip down the Mulsanne straight like a bullet. However, this 1969 example, which is worth about £375,000, is one of just seven that were adapted for the road. Unfair, then, to criticise it for lack of comfort.

And it goes like a long-legged racer. There’s something wonderful about cars that were built for Le Mans, where you drive and drive and drive for 24 hours. The short sprint of F1 would breed a nimbler, more nervous kind of car. But this has a reassuring chunkiness to it, as if you could set off straight away for anywhere on the planet.

The steering is unbelievably heavy. But it is steady as a rock at high speed, and that’s what you want from a car like this. Otherwise your nerves at the end of a 24-hour race would be frayed to bits.

The engine was built for endurance: unlike some it has not been pushed to develop its power at very high revs. The idea is to have lots of power throughout the rev range, so that you don’t overstress it.

And all the old knobs and buttons are fantastic — I think they must be out of a Ford Cortina. Despite Ford being unquestionably North American, things like this betray its English connection. It was built in Slough (something that distinguishes it from a Ferrari). The sound of the V8 engine does not have the shrillness or spiciness of a Ferrari. This was a muscle car. It was a brutal device designed to survive. A Maximus of the auto circus.

And so to the new one, the Ford GT. My car is one of 101 being imported into Europe, of which just 27 will go to good parents in the UK and one will be sent to rehab because Jeremy had it.

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