Come to Switzerland, they said, and try out the new Can-Am Spyder. But I had cast a discerning eye over photographs of this new fun-lovers' power-sport item and had noticed something almost straight away: no doors. If I have a personal rule of thumb when it comes to driving things, it's to be wary of vehicles without doors. They tend to be motorbikes.

“Love to,” I said, “but I don't have a bike licence.” “Ah, but you don't need one,” they said. We were talking, apparently, of a “paradigm shift” in motoring preconceptions, a three-wheeled roadster being neither car nor bike but a howlingly new combination of the two. What the three-wheel arrangement brings is stability. The Spyder has a leading health and safety advantage over a motorbike, and certainly over a quad bike. Not even Ozzy Osbourne could end up underneath his own Can-Am Spyder.

Funky-looking machine, too. Bombardier Recreational Products, which also makes high-end jet skis, describes it as a cross between a motorbike and an open-top sports car, though it could equally be a cross between a snowmobile and another snowmobile. It is crying out for a leading role in a movie car chase and, indeed, a BRP executive hinted that it may soon have one. A Bond film would be the obvious place, although that kind of product placement costs a heap of money and is likely to end in flames at the bottom of a crevasse, which may not be the image for your product that you wish to project.

Anyway, in Switzerland we were required to pass a perfunctory Can-Am Spyder driving test on a track. A troubled look entered Cristiano the instructor's eye when I told him I had never ridden a motorbike and that the last time I had been on a moped was shortly after the moped was invented. Cristiano watched me straddle this 998cc machine and make my tentative way around the cones, and promptly declared me unfit for the afternoon's proposed two-hour excursion through the Alps.

Well, fair enough. The proposed route was going to involve motorways and those twisty, sheer-drop mountain roads that invariably have a coach coming up the other way. You're probably better off familiarising yourself with the vehicle for more than two minutes before attempting this, unless you're hell-bent on becoming a bunch of flowers by a Swiss kerb.

So I rode pillion behind Cristiano, bolting along at more than 60mph with a Swiss driving instructor clasped between my thighs - a first-time experience for me. The great news for passengers is that you have no responsibility - no tiresome leaning. You're free to look around you and soak it all up.

And oh, that Alpine setting. We rode from Cossonay to Gstaad, deep in Roger Moore country. It was so staggering at times that I almost forgot the still-pulsing shame and the cramp in my legs. The music-box houses, the perfect trains, the cows from Central Casting - the place never stops posing for photographs. The hills, one instinctively felt, were alive with the sound of music, plus, of course, the sound of the engine's mildly aggressive top-note and the noise of insects bouncing off one's crash helmet. Why don't we all live there? (Answer: it would spoil it.)

The next morning, back at the track, I retook the test, passed, and was finally allowed sole custody of a Spyder in a public- road situation. The steering, I can thus report, is a bit of a heave, but you get used to it. The automatic gearbox changes down on its own, but not up (you have to push a button), which seems strange. Nevertheless, set free and not especially missing Cristiano's warm embrace, I piloted myself rather exultantly along country roads and through a town centre, and failed to kill anyone, including myself. Bikers heading the other way on proper motorbikes would even lift a gloved hand in greeting.

Who's going to buy the Spyder? Someone with lots of toys already, I would hazard. Bikers manqué, perhaps, who were never quite brave enough. It might be handy, though not compulsory, to be in the advanced stages of a particularly withering midlife crisis. And you're going to need a big garage - best of all on the side of an even bigger house in Switzerland. Is this you? Lucky you.

Engine: BRP Rotax 990 V-Twin

Max Output: 106hp

Fuel capacity: 27 litres

Length: 2m 67cm

Width: 1m 50cm

One careful owner: Roman Abramovich

In the glove box: no glove box

On the hi-fi: no hi-fi

Bound for: Malibu

Buy it if: your jet ski broke

Marks out of 10: 9

Price: from £12,929