In 1990 Lamborghini replaced the Countach with the Diablo. It was much less striking to behold, principally because the Countach had been there and done that. But it was even faster. And that was a bad thing, because now you were in a hot, cramped box, with heavy controls, doing 200mph. Death was always a very real possibility. Often you’d have embraced it.

By the 21st century, every other supercar maker had got round this problem. Their cars had light steering, Nissany pedals, air-conditioning and so on. But not Lambo. It was sticking to the original recipe: make it mad and paint it orange. Which is why the Murciélago, which came along in 2001, was as much of a bastard as its predecessors.

I spent some time last week with the latest — and possibly the last — incarnation of this insane raging bull. It’s called, rather snappily, the LP (for longitudinally positioned engine) 670-4 (to denote the horsepower in metric terms and the number of driven wheels) SV (meaning SuperVeloce). My, the Italians are a romantic bunch.

In English, what they’ve done is upped the power from the 6.5-litre V12 by 30. That’s not much. But they’ve also lightened the car by 220lb. That’s a lot. And the result is extraordinary.

When you fire up a modern-day Ferrari, it is almost as though you are stepping into the innards of a PlayStation game. You sense the technology. You feel the wiring working. You can almost hear the electrons monitoring this and covering that. It’s a wonderful feeling, even though you can’t help wondering if half the stuff is there only for marketing reasons — “We have an F1 team you know ...”

In the Murciélago, it’s just pure unadulterated violence. The grip from the four-wheel-drive system as you leave the line is so immense that you usually leave half the clutch behind. But you’ve no time to think about that because you are already doing 100. And by the time you register that, you’re doing 150. And still, there’s no let-up.

The speed is incredible. Mesmerising. Intoxicating. Bonkers. And then you get to a corner.

In a Ferrari, you feel an electronic interpretation of what’s going on through the magnetised dampers and the five-way traction control. There’s none of that in the Lambo. It’s the road. And then your arse.

The grip is phenomenal. There is so much g that you can actually feel — and I’m not making this up — your face coming off. But you’d better not be worrying about that because when, eventually, the laws of physics intervene, you will be doing somewhere in the region of a million. And you will need the reactions of a ninja lightning bolt to stay out of the Armco. This car, in the words of the Stig, is “a bit fighty”.

And that’s it. That’s what the Lambo does. It goes very fast in a straight line. It goes very fast in the corners. And that’s it. Want heated door mirrors? Forget it.

I’m not saying for a moment that life inside is as bad as it was in a Countach. The air-conditioning works for a kick-off and there’s nearly enough room for a human. But it’s still pretty basic. You get the impression they got the stereo from the local motorists’ discount store and that the factory manager’s mum did the stitching on the centre console. Even the seatbelts are the wrong way round.

I like that. Sometimes, I can find a Ferrari a bit up itself. Whereas you get the sense when you’re in a Lambo that it was all built for a bit of a laugh. The company doesn’t have a racing team. The managing director looks like a male model. And you get the impression they’d far rather sell a car to Paris Hilton than Michael Schumacher.

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