Keeping up with the Joneses can get complicated for the super-rich. They can’t just buy attention with a Rolex, stately home and a Ferrari - all their friends already have them.

Truly to stand out from the crowd they need something out of the ordinary. Something spectacular. Something like the Novitec Rosso F430 Race.

Handing a factory-fresh Ferrari F430 and a cheque for £100,000 to a tuning company sounds as daft as letting Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen loose on Buckingham Palace with a brief to “funk it up”. But with the F430 Race, the German tuning company has proved it’s capable of creating a car that’s almost as fast as the landmark Ferrari Enzo.

When a normal 430 starts to drag its feet, at, say, 150mph, the 707bhp F430 Race will keep the hammer down and roar to 215mph with ease. How often you’d do that is a moot point, but the fact the car is capable of it means the owners will win at real world Top Trumps - which is, let’s face it, what really counts.

On a derestricted stretch of German autobahn, I dropped a gear and planted the throttle. The skin tried to separate from my face. Even a fleeting nudge on the throttle brought up speeds that would send the Daily Mail red with rage.

The heart of the madness lies in two superchargers and an arsenal of cooling systems strapped to the V8 engine, which is a complex way of forcing more cold air into the combustion chamber, so creating more power. While a standard Ferrari F430 has a paltry 490bhp to play with - less than the BMW M5 - Novitec Rosso has pulled another 217bhp, and a total of 535 lb ft of torque, from Ferrari’s 4.3 litre V8. More importantly, Novitec has made it reliable.

Ferraris of old were so fragile when they left the factory that delving into the engine bay to score more horses was like tap dancing through a minefield. It was a question of when, not if, that expensive thoroughbred spat its engine’s internal organs all over the road.

Novitec Rosso, based in Germany, is a specialist high-end tuner of Ferraris and not affiliated to the Italian company. It aims to sell 25 cars a year including this 430 Race and a similar supercharger conversion for the 599. It doesn’t even ask for the car to be shipped to its base. A team of technicians finds a suitable local workshop and comes to the customer - boutique service for a boutique price.

The performance upgrades are so effective you feel as if the F430 Race has the power to bend time. Its bare statistics are impressive – it will fly from standstill to 60mph in 3.5sec, and doesn’t stop charging until 216mph. Yet even these numbers can’t convey its towering performance. That’s because the twin supercharger conversion delivers masses of torque, so instead of a vicious spike where all the power sits at the top end of the rev range, a flood of power comes at a flex of your right foot, regardless of the rpm.

And then there’s the sound. At times it’s enough to make you believe the world is collapsing inwards. So loud, in fact, that the exhaust system is illegal in Germany on its loudest setting. There’s even a loudness switch. For trundling through town you flick a switch on the wheel to its gentlest setting and the bypass valves in the exhaust are closed by technical witchcraft. Once out of town you flick the switch and crank it back up to Spinal Tap volumes. What could be more fun?

The F430 Race sits 1½in lower than the standard Ferrari, which was ground-scraping in its own right. That means it can pitch into bends without body roll, cornering faster and flatter. Lowering the suspension usually comes at a price – the shattering of the nose into a million expensive fragments at the merest sight of a speed bump. Thankfully, Novitec has a solution. At the touch of a button, the nose lifts out of harm’s way.

A good job too, because Novitec has invested heavily in developing a body kit to make the most of the extra power. Working with Stuttgart University, wind-tunnel tests have delivered 30% more downforce than the standard F430, which means increased grip and stability at higher speeds.

As for the interior, anything goes. A visit to the factory revealed a lime-green Novitec 599 with an ostrich-skin interior.

Yes, it’s over the top and the residual values would call for most of us to have to sell the house. Worse still is the knowledge that few customers will truly exploit the performance their £100,000 buys them. But the demand is there – and customers are demanding more.

The next project on Novitec’s “to do” list is a twin supercharger conversion of the mind-blowing 430 Scuderia. Believe me, the Joneses will have no chance.

Novitec Rosso F430 Race

ENGINE 4308cc, eight cylinders
POWER 707bhp @ 8350rpm
TORQUE 535 lb ft @ 5350rpm
TRANSMISSION Six-speed semi-automatic
FUEL n/a CO2 n/a
PERFORMANCE 0-60mph: 3.5sec
TOP SPEED 216mph
PRICE £250,000
ROAD TAX BAND G (£400 for 12 months)
VERDICT The ultimate Ferrari that stands out from the crowd