Frankly I’m surprised anyone wastes their money on a supercar; not because they’re hard to park and there’s nowhere to use the power, but for another bigger reason: why spend a fortune on something you can make yourself? You buy a huge engine from BMW or Chevrolet and then get someone who has a rudimentary grasp of aerodynamics to design a body that won’t take off as the speed builds up. Add some leather and some electric windows and then top the whole thing off with some ducts and snarly bits and, hey presto, a supercar for about 80p.

It’s so much harder to make a small car, because though it’ll have exactly the same number of components as a supercar, it must be sold for £7,000.

Proof, however, that things aren’t quite this simple are to be found in the history books, which are littered with supercar companies that just didn’t make the grade. There are a couple on the market right now that must have looked simple when the designer went to his bank manager for a loan. But look pretty silly now, sitting there all unsold and unloved.

That’s what makes the Zonda such a remarkable car. When you look at it you just know what’s happened. Some bloke who fancies himself as a bit of a racing driver goes to NatWest, gets a few hundred grand to start a factory, buys an engine from Mercedes, and then gets an 11-year-old boy to design the exterior. Leaving the interior to his baby sister.

And you just know that this doesn’t work any more. Oh sure there was a time when supercar drivers expected their two-seat road racers to break down all the time. But not any more.

A car that won’t start is as useless as a crippled racehorse. You may as well shoot it.

This is why supercars have changed in recent years. Lamborghinis were rubbish until Audi came along and introduced some proper production techniques. It was the same story at Aston Martin. Employing some old bloke in a store coat to bash aluminium all day is no substitute for robots and the unerring certainty of mechanism. It’s Ford money that turned Aston around.

And ironic, isn’t it, that it’s now Aston helping to keep Ford alive.

Zonda, however, doesn’t have the backing of a big boy. It’s a secretary bird with no rhinoceros. And yet . . . it works. Ferrari has the Formula One team to go to for advice about suspension settings, and Fiat’s buying power to get the components cheap. Zonda doesn’t. Yet the Zonda F is an easy match for even the Enzo.

In some ways it’s better. You can see out of a Zonda, for instance, and you can do more than three full-bore standing starts without needing a new clutch. I have a huge respect for this car, but I have an even larger respect for the tiny little team that made it.

That said, of course, it’s no match for the Bugatti. The Veyron does not have the delicacy of a Ferrari 430 or the soundtrack of a Zonda. And while it is an old name, we sort of know the current car has about as much to do with the Type 41 as a mock Elizabethan house has to do with Hampton Court.

But thanks to its simply prodigious power, it is surely the greatest supercar ever made. An achievement that simply wouldn’t have been possible without backing from the mighty VW.