LA DOLCE VITA

Ultimate thrills, the world's greatest cigar-mobile, and a new German super-coupe are the LUX samplings this month by Darius Sanai

FERRARI 458 ITALIA

So, you have just taken delivery of your new toy car. By which I mean, an adult toy car, a real one, with several hundred horsepower, many wheel drive, 21- inch wheels with tyres the size of Madagascar, a sound system lifted directly from an Ibiza nightclub, and racing seats designed by fighter pilots and lined with baby alpaca hide. It looks ferocious, it sounds like a jet fighter on takeoff, and it goes from zero to sixty faster than a bullet from a Russian prime minister's hunting rifle. And it costs almost as much as Greece's national debt.

All of which is extremely commendable: the ability to make pointless luxury objects is one of the things that differentiate humans from other apes. But as you bump down the road on its concrete-hard racing suspension, have you ever wondered whether it's fun? Not whether it's brilliant, an icon of engineering prowess; or blindingly fast yet fantastically safe; but simply, fun. Fun, in the same way your wind-up toy cars of your childhood were, or that first remote-controlled racing car you took to the park?

It's a question worth asking because, if you are a car connoisseur, then you, like me, will inevitably have driven a number of high-performance cars recently that have been utterly brilliant, but no fun at all. You know the deal: you've just accelerated around a perfectly cambered bend to an extremely illegal speed, in almost no time at all, and you feel like you could be playing a game on your iPad 2. And if the car in question is a low-slung two seater that you couldn't possibly use every day of your life, then you'd have to question the point. A sports or supercar that isn't thrilling enough for you to grin broadly and shout 'whee!' while zooming down a favourite road is like a perfectly sourced, beautifully cooked and utterly nutritious meal in a lauded restaurant that doesn't taste of anything. And there’s enough of both (bland sports cars and meals) for it to be a worry for anyone parting with a six-figure sum these days.

That's the question that came into my head as I took delivery of Ferrari's 458 Italia. The numbers looked perfect: 570 horsepower, top speed of more than 200 mph, zero to sixty in just over three seconds. The shape also looked perfect: for me, the 458 Italia is the most outrageously beautiful Ferrari since the 1980s Testarossa (which is looked down on by Ferrari snobs, but with its cat-slash strakes on its sides, looked wildly seductive). The 458 has a monstrous, narrow-eyed, low-slung nose, a purposeful swoop at its sides, and, best of all, the view of its red-headed engine lying just behind the driver's head, encased in glass.

The last mid-engined Ferrari I had driven was the 430 Scuderia, the racing version of the 458's predecessor, and the overwhelming, wondrous memory of the Scuderia was not of its mind-bending speed or Formula One-ish noise, but its sheer, utter, unadulterated thrill. Would the 458 live up to that, or would it be sanitised and sterilised in the name of progress and appealing to a broader number of buyers, as has happened to some rivals?

First signs on getting into the cabin (and you really do get in: aim your bottom roughly in the direction of the seat, and let yourself drop) were mixed. Positive, in the sense that the black leather with yellow stitching, the steering wheel with its Italian tricolour stitching, the massive yellow rev counter at the centre of the carbon-fibre dashboard aimed at the driver, were all very classy. But would classiness mean less raw fun?

I stabbed at the Engine Start button on the steering wheel, expecting a neighbourhoodawakening roar like that produced by my neighbour's Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera, which causes a small earthquake and a diversion of Heathrowbound planes every time he starts it up. But the 458 sounded much quieter, if extremely purposeful: more puma than lion.

Hm. I inched down the road and around the first urban corner. First surprise: the ride was compliant and gentle, not rocky and jarring. Was this really a race-ready Ferrari? Had things gone soft? I trickled the car out of London in heavy traffic, accompanied by a million stares of awe, pondering how the 458 is a car that is such a legend already that it kicks the reactions of even the most hackneyed observers beyond envy and into the realm of universal admiration.

Finally, I reached a favourite road, a stretch of weaving, sweeping country lane not all that far from Oxford that used to give me great joy in my university days in my (extremely fun) rides of the time. The most enjoyable of all of those was a Peugeot 205 GTI, a tiny, tinny, buzzy, basic thing that was more fun than watching The Clash.

This Ferrari has almost exactly five times as much power as the GTI of the late 1980s, I reminded myself, aiming it at the first bend, switching the steering wheel button setting to 'Race', and flipping the delicious carbon-fibre gear change paddle down three gears. The 458 Italia burst out of its skin like a mild-mannered chap turning into the Hulk (only much, much more quickly). We whizzed left, right, along the long straight, quick left and right, and along the long, beautiful right. The engine howled and yowled, the rev counter zipped up towards its 9000 rpm limit, the steering felt utterly alive and precise, and, more than anything else, the car was a thrill: it was all a chap could do not to let out a series of whoops and rebel yells, which are not exactly becoming of a supercar driver in Oxfordshire.

As I carried on towards the Cotswolds, I occasionally hit a patch of extra-bumpy road surface, or wet leaves on a corner. At such speeds, most cars - including those boasting four-wheel drive - would have done at least a double-take, or summoned a metaphorical electronic arm to tap you on the shoulder, wag a finger in the air, and slow you down automatically. But not the 458 Italia: it carried on, singing, dancing, furiously, balletically, an astonishing blend of raw power and delicacy. I found myself steering with utter precision through series of fast Scurves using nothing more than my throttle foot and the tips of my index fingers and thumbs, with as much joy as if I'd been skiing at the edge of my abilities down the Kandahar black run in St Anton. I was only slowed down by some rain: the windscreen wiper button on the steering wheel is a tad fiddly.

And that, the joy, is the point. It kicks in even when you are driving slowly, in a line of other traffic, or simply keeping the pace behind an enthusiastic white van man: anytime there is a bit of curve or slowing down or speeding up, the Ferrari is a thrill. You can make it louder and edgier by flicking the manettino on the steering wheel, which controls the car's settings, past Race; you can make it quieter and less frenetic by flipping to Wet. But the 458 Italia is always a thrill to drive at anything above an urban crawl.

Given it's also a thrill to look at, and to be seen in, oh, and it's also quite preposterously fast, it's pretty much the perfect car. With a better windscreen wiper button it would have scored an unprecedented perfect 20 LUX Rating.

LUX Rating: 19.5/20

MERCEDES-BENZ SLS AMG ROADSTER

One of the aspects of life the internet has changed irrevocably is the concept of a review. In the journalistic sense of the word, what was once the undemocratic domain of (frequently) self-styled experts has now become the extremely democratic domain of, well, anyone, really. Although this means we are forever condemned to read the sock puppet critiques of hotels by their owners on TripAvdisor, and gape at the inhumanity of the commentators on the Daily Mail website, in many ways this is a good thing. I, and I suspect you, would rather read the views of a commercial pilot on the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner than those of some dozy journalist grinding out a press release. Equally, there are plenty of online forums where car enthusiasts can compare the thrills of various cars on a racetrack, for example, for all to read.

I pondered this while climbing into the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Roadster, one of the most talked-about new cars of 2011. The Roadster is the top-of-the-range Mercedes-Benz, priced to go head to head with Ferraris, Bentleys, Aston Martins and Lamborghinis, with the added advantage of being a convertible. It was being launched - lent to journalists to review - in one of the world's most scenic settings, just outside Monaco on the Côte d'Azur. When you get a book to review, you get a list of typos and clarifications of the final draft you are sent to read. When you take a trip to review a freshlyreleased car, you are given a professionally bound 'roadbook' with directions onto a driving route that has been meticulously researched, down to the time you arrive at each cafe and the canapés available. The idea is to allow reviewers to drive the car on ideal territory: in this case, winding, sinuous mountain roads carved between rock faces in the south of France, all the better to appreciate the engine's snarl with the roof down, its perfect handling, its enormous reserves of power, etc.

In the spirit of the online era, though, I decided to demur from the route (and the sat nav's insistent tones). For the south of France is indeed the perfect place to launch a convertible supercar which, when accessorised with the required extras, should cost around £200,000. But not for its winding roads. While the SLS AMG Roadster has roadbarbecueing performance, this is not the type of car its owners will take into four-wheel drifts while wheel-twirling like suburban hooligans. With its long nose, majestic sweeping sides and utterly gorgeous, clean looks with the roof down, the Roadster is a perfectly-crafted jewel, as likely to be thrown hooliganishly around corners as the gold and diamond-encrusted Rolex Submariner belonging to the chap walking out of Monte Carlo casino right now is to be used in a deep-sea dive.

No, to review the 200 mph SLS AMG Roadster properly, I drove it in the way its owners are likely to, and pootled along to Casino Square in Monte Carlo. This elevated space, sitting between the Hotel de Paris with its three-Michelin-starred restaurant and eleven-carated female guests and the Casino, is the ultimate test for a supercar in one particular way. Along with Hans Place, behind Harrods, in London, it has a passing populace so inured to supercars and hypercars that taking a new one there is a test of its looks, just as much as a run through the Arabian desert is a test of its cooling capabilities.

Roof down on an azure-sky day, the SLS excelled. Even the doorman at the Hotel de Paris, who each day drives more supercars than Michael Schumacher will in a lifetime, stopped, examined, and gave an imperceptible nod. One local, all honey tan, untucked white shirt, Brioni slacks and Billionaire loafers, strolling home after a lunch of Petrus and Partagas at Alain Ducasse's three- Michelin-starred Le Louis XV, stopped in his tracks, examined the car up and down as if it were a freshlyarrived Ukrainian prostitute, nodded to himself as if having made a decision, and gave us a thumbs up. A bottle of Petrus for every reader if he has not acquired a Roadster of his own by now.

And what was it like to drive, you wonder? The old distinction between manual gearboxes, where you had to change gear precisely, with a gearlever, and automatics, when the car did it for you, imprecisely, via a torque converter, seems to have vanished overnight. Every fast car worth its salt (and lots of not fast cars) now comes with a set of paddles, no clutch pedal, and the option of putting the car in automatic and letting it change gears.

With supercars, in most cases (and this is an important point, if you bear with me), this mode doesn't work very well. The car changes gears for you, but with the unpredictability and reluctance of a Grand National winner being asked to plough a field. While it does mean you don't need to change gear, in practice driving through urban environments in such cars is a series of irritations, as it keeps hopping up and then down through the gears either too quickly or too slowly. The point about a powerful automatic is that it should feel effortless.

The SLS AMG Roadster feels utterly effortless, if you want it to. Stick it in Automatic and Comfort, and you can loll around, Cohiba Behike in one hand, glass of Cristal in the other, stroking the gas pedal and making the monstrous engine emit the occasional gurgle of delight.

Flip it into Sport, still on Automatic, and its gear changes have the anticipation and intent of a superpowered muscle car. It's still relaxing, but the AMG changes nature, almost imperceptibly: it's now an All Black midfield rugby player, able to canter and burst into overwhelming power surges at will.

Then there's the Sport Plus mode. At this point, the AMG throws the Cristal out of the window, crushes its Cohiba into the headlamps of the nearest passing car, and turns into a steroidal stallion with a jungle-like roar. It's a big, long car, the SLS, so it will never feel quite as agile as a pared-down sports car, but aiming such a louchely beautiful monster around corners and past lagging traffic puts a wide smile on your face. It's not the rebel yell you get in the Ferrari 458, which is a different kind of car intended, I suspect, for a different kind of buyer: it's more a deep smile of satisfaction of the type a Bond criminal would get when wiping out an entire community of Secret Service spies.

And then you can flip it back into Comfort, light up the next Cohiba, and turn your attentions to your passenger. As a car designed for its target audience, it can't be beaten.

LUX Rating: 19/20

BMW 640D

You are reaching a certain age, and you want a car that combines a sort of rakish loucheness with good performance, enough space for people in the back, plenty of room for the golf clubs, and some proper Teutonic build quality. You're not racy enough for a Porsche 911 and your budget doesn't stretch to the big Mercedes CL. Ever since it was launched in 1976, the answer to your needs has been provided (barring a decade-long gap when it wasn't produced) by the BMW Six Series.

This sharkish car is technically a coupe, but it's actually something more: an elongated, elegant and more sporty version of a big BMW saloon, without losing too much of the practicality. And the new version, out in late 2011, addresses the somewhat unfortunate detailing of the last version and resembles far more the deliciously louche original Six series, beloved of Bavarian businessmen with a woman in each Stadt, of the 70s and 80s.

The 640d is also excellent to drive. Mine came with a racy (optional) red and black leather interior, enough to make any 50-year-old feel he is 20 again, meaty steering, and enough horsepower to blast through the country with minimum effort. It's also very quiet and refined, unlike its ancestor. The dashboard has definitely been designed by the descendants of the designers of the original Star Trek set, and with its combination of tech overload and clever electronics makes you feel extremely clever and superior to your passenger, because it all faces the driver (another Six series trait).

And if you order the 640d, with its ultrapowerful but ultra-efficient diesel engine, you'll use less petrol than a mouse riding a bicycle.

And yet - there is a proviso. Two, in fact. Firstly, the ride isn't as smooth as in Mercedes coupes; but maybe that doesn't bother you. Secondly, BMW's petrol (rather than diesel) engines have a seamless eagerness that's evident the moment you touch the accelerator. The throttle pedal seems alive, and the driving experience gains a key touch of extra soul and glamour. Which is absent here.

There is nothing at all wrong with the engine in the 640d - it even sounds great, and throaty, unlike every other diesel - but the accelerator doesn't respond in the same way, and the engine doesn't feel like it wants to fly. It doesn't have the rev-freedom of a BMW V8. The engine doesn't feel like anything, in fact, other than a super-efficient device to propel you.

Which it does brilliantly, but the point of buying a coupe is to be louche, not efficient. So I recommend the Six series thoroughly, but do think about equipping it with a proper V8 petrol engine, saving petrol simply by walking a little more often, and keeping the diesel for the family car.

LUX Rating: 17/20