According to our spies, at the time of writing there are currently three Enzos in the UK. Eric Clapton recently took delivery of a yellow one (expect another lucrative stint at the Albert Hall for old 'Slow Hand' later this year). Fellow musician and fanatical tifoso Jay Kay collected his black Enzo from the factory just before the San Marino Grand Prix (expect a lucrative Jamiroquai Greatest Hits album later this year). And then there's the red Enzo you see here, supplied by a generous, anonymous friend of evo for us to test on home turf. Some mags have all the luck...

We've got a day with Maranello's shocking red missile. Collect it at 9:30am and return before dusk. Ten glorious hours in which to explore the abilities of the fastest, most advanced, most sought-after car to wear a prancing horse badge, number plate and tax disc. And all on roads we know well. It's a day subject to two conditions from the owner, one perfectly understandable, the other unbelievable: please bring it back in one piece, but not until you've had the shift lights blinking as often as possible. Righty-ho then.

The Enzo is already primed and waiting as Gus Gregory and I arrive at its faceless factory unit lair. I hadn't expected to feel awed by my first proper sighting of the Enzo, for all the photographs I've seen portray it as an awkward, out-of-kilter, ugly son-of-a-gun. I'm in for a shock. As I walk towards the building the Enzo's extravagantly profiled proboscis pokes menacingly into view, like a fighter jet emerging from its blast pen. The shocking sliver of scarlet is caught in an almost ethereal shaft of sunlight, contrasting vividly against the building's pale, pressed steel and mirrored glass flank, an alien craft visiting planet Earth. In the cold light of day it is nothing short of devastating.

Perhaps because there's never been anything quite like it before, your eyes struggle to assimilate the strange convergence of aggressive curves and apparently conflicting angles. The long, looping nose is at odds with the stubby, wingless tail: unnaturally out-of-proportion, like a Manx cat. Shawn of the extravagant spoilers that defined the F40, F50 and just about every other top-flight supercar come to that, the Enzo is the product of another age, advanced aerodynamic principles ensuring its airflow is managed more by what you can't see than what you can. It's not beautiful in the conventional, 20th Century sense, but it is undoubtedly a pioneering car of its time.

With the insurance documents exchanged for an impressive, lipstick-red ignition key, the moment of truth is upon us. I've never driven anything quite so special, quite so significant, and it's with no small amount of trepidation that I slide my fingers into the trailing edge of the driver's door, pinch the small, flat latch and ease the carbonfibre door into its gas-strut-assisted upward arc.

A waft of expensive, exotic resin, mixed with the familiar tang of leather upholstery drifts from the cockpit. That distinctive square-topped, button-peppered steering wheel stares out at me in defiant fashion, and a four-point harness hangs in business-like fashion from the back of each overtly sculpted Sparco seat. Palms already moist, I lower myself into the cockpit, something made easy thanks to the door taking a large bite out of the roof, GT40-style. Here we go.

Once in, two things strike you. The steering wheel is set high, even when you've explored the full range of adjustment and, secondly, when you bring the door down shut, the upswept side windows make you feel particularly enclosed, restricting your peripheral vision as though you've donned a crash helmet. Fore and aft vision is surprisingly good, though, thanks to the vast cinematic windscreen and well-placed, curiously asymmetric wing mirrors. Even the rear-view mirror contains a useful reflection, thanks to the generous bulkhead window, glass engine cover and lack of rear spoiler. It's still not easy to gauge how wide the thing is, though, and I'm filled with a deep dread of dragging one of the lovely five-spoke alloys along a ragged, unseen kerb before we've moved an inch.

Take a look around the interior and you encounter your first disappointment. Get beyond the initial wonderment of simply being in an Enzo, and the overall ambience isn't as spectacular as a half-million pound price-tag would suggest. While it would be wrong to expect the kind of flamboyance found in the interior of a Pagani Zonda, you'd expect the company that has won four F1 Constructor's titles on the trot to knock-out perfect carbonfibre work, but on
some of the more intricate mouldings around the ventilation controls the characteristic herringbone weave is scrunched and distorted. The fact that you can also see your feet, not to mention bits of wiring, through the gaping voids between dashboard and instrument pack isn't what I expected either, to be honest. If you're looking for an aura of total, shining, no-expense- spared quality and fetishistic detailing, the Enzo falls well short of the jewel-like McLaren F1.

Still, enough of my nit-picking. Turn the ignition key and the instrument pod comes to life, the bold centrally-sited tacho and smaller, right-located speedo - reading to a heady 400kph - vividly supplemented by bright LCD gauges for fuel and temperatures in the left-hand side of the binnacle. You can scroll between two different styles of presentation by pressing the 'Mode' button on the steering wheel, either in horizontal bar graphs or a trio of more eye-pleasing arcs, and you can also check the pressures of the Enzo's bespoke Bridgestone Scuderia tyres. Left and right indicators are controlled by arrow buttons on the upper spokes of the wheel, while annoyingly the horn buttons are all too easily found in the rim itself, in the top of the ergonomic thumb cut-outs. Baaarrp!

Other wheel-mounted buttons take care of selecting reverse gear, raising the front suspension for ramps and speed bumps (an incredibly noisy procedure that fills the cabin with the grating whine of a demented fork-lift truck) and activating 'Race' mode, which enables faster, more aggressive gearshifts, tenses the suspension and relaxes the ASR system's tolerance for wheelspin. Another, red-ringed button switches out the ASR completely. Finally, for the full-Schumi effect, an oblong display in the carbon top section of the wheel contains the all-important shift light array, while behind the wheel and fixed in position to the steering column itself, a pair of carbon gearshift paddles protrude invitingly.

With the ignition on, all that remains is to place your foot on the brake pedal, pull back on both paddles to select neutral, take a deep breath and prod the red starter located at the top of the centre console's vertical stack of buttons. The starter click-whirrs, spinning fruitlessly for no more than a second before the 6-litre V12 detonates into life, flooding the sparsely furnished cockpit with a deep, bruising wall of noise, before settling into a fast, unwavering idle. It's a proper noise, more complex, gritty and fast-paced than anything you'll find in 'everyday' exotics like the Murci΃©lago, Vanquish or 575M. This is the real deal.

Let it idle for a few minutes to get some temperature into the vital fluids, and as the LCD pointers flicker off their invisible end-stops, the rapid tickover speed drops tempo a fraction. Time to go. Tug back on the right hand lever, listen as the gear engages, then squeeze on the exquisitely well-weighted throttle and let the Enzo's microprocessors juggle clutch bite-point against power. Smoothly and without protest the Enzo is up and running, tyres already rumbling on the road surface, feedback starting to tingle through the whole car like low-voltage electricity. The oil and water might be warming nicely, but the vast carbon brakes are stone cold and proffer minimal feel. As we trundle out of the trading estate, stopping smoothly for each T-junction is tricky, the sweet-spot between too little and too much pedal pressure seemingly elusive. I feel like a learner.

Fortunately we're on a dual-carriageway within minutes, which provides the opportunity to short-shift up through the six-speed 'box and settle into the Enzo's way of doing things. With a bit more speed and a few degrees of temperature, the brakes gain a smoother, more linear feel. Already you can sense the stopping power under your right foot (or left, if you're that way inclined) and hear it too, as the discs and pads emit a distinctively dry, abrasive sound during braking.

Somewhat worryingly, when we get to the first of the many roundabouts, the steering isn't that feelsome, particularly during the initial turn-in phase when you want to know precisely how much grip is available. Disconcertingly dead and glassy, it lacks the nuggety, organic feel and tactile reassurance of a Zonda. Perhaps once the tyres have warmed to their task and the aerodynamics begin to come into play the front-end will feel more connected. I hope so.

Ten minutes in and I feel horns start to sprout through my scalp. A clear, lightly trafficked dual-carriageway and a 650bhp, V12-engined, 1365kg Ferrari deserve to be exploited, and on the approach to the next roundabout I thumb the 'Race' button, which triggers the Enzo's electronic equivalent of the human 'flight-or-fight' adrenalin rush. You can almost feel the car tense with anticipation as its transmission, suspension and stability control systems brace themselves for the impending release of energy. Flip-blip down into second, scribe a steady line as we circumnavigate the roundabout, let the front wheels straighten, then, as the dual-carriageway opens out ahead, firmly, insistently depress the throttle...

Mother of God! The Enzo responds as though hurled down the road from a steam catapult, nose rising, rear wheels rotating just ahead of our ever-increasing road speed, Bridgestone Scuderias digging every treadblock into the tarmac in an effort to contain the rampant horsepower. Speed and revs rise so fast it's all you can do to register the avalanche of shift-lights and pull back on the upshift paddle before the spectacular forward motion is strafed by the rev-limiter's machine-gun stutter. As third gear hits home, the engine summons an altogether more threatening note - not deafening, but an impregnable sonic swell of hardcore decibels, rumbling and snarling and blaring away in that display case of an engine bay. It's an awe-inspiring noise; a digitally remastered Ferrari 512 Le Mans car with a few concessions to the sensibilities of 2003 noise legislation.

If anything, a higher gear intensifies the acceleration, prolonging the neck-straining, chest-squeezing stampede towards the horizon and making you feel even more giddy. Stomach left somewhere in the region of the roundabout and head at the mercy of massive accelerative g, the Enzo's ability to scramble your senses verges on that of a theme park ride. For an accurate Enzo-at-full-noise simulation, go to Alton Towers and try the Oblivion vertical drop rollercoaster.

The temptation to pull another gear (and another, and another) is almost irresistible, but we're already comfortably into three figures, in what is without doubt the most conspicuous car in Britain. Besides which, John B has already quantified the Enzo's straight-line credentials at Fiorano (see page 86). What we really want are a string of corners. A few big braking zones. Testing surfaces and tricky cambers. What we want is the classic British B-road.

Steering the Enzo on familiar blacktop, I'm soon feeling more comfortable. This is something of a double-edged sword. Good because with every mile it flows more smoothly, swiftly and gets more feelsome, bad because confidently guiding the Enzo means we're often travelling at speeds I would never have thought possible on roads I know like the back of my hand. The realisation soon dawns that the Enzo's ability is way beyond the realms of the public highway. Roads that have provided a stern test of some truly great cars simply feel beneath it, unworthy of its presence. You crave a grand stage, a broad sweeping mountain Alpine pass, a derestricted autobahn. Anywhere to allow the Enzo the freedom to cut lose. Britain, basically, doesn't feel big enough.

As a consequence you soon become resigned to the fact that piloting the Enzo is a far tougher test of your self-restraint than it will ever be of the car itself. Even pushing beyond 5/10ths is questionable. Steal yourself and wind it out to 6 or 7/10ths and the result is mesmerising, as staring wide-eyed through the Enzo's huge windscreen every other car on the road appears to be moving as though ploughing through treacle. Nothing I've driven disguises its speed so surreally and yet gives such a satisfying hit of involvement. On a road that makes a 911 work for its living at 100mph, the Enzo tackles it at least 30 per cent faster without breaking sweat, hitting absurd speeds on the shortest of straights. It might not be quite as fast against the clock as a McLaren, but I'd wager it's a hell of a lot more driveable. We'll settle the supercar score soon enough, but for now the bottom line is this: anyone who climbs out of an Enzo and says it's not fast enough is a liar or Michael Schumacher.

Contrary to its sharp, uncompromising looks, the Enzo's damping is tight and punchy, but pliant enough to absorb potentially upsetting lumps and bumps. As I'd hoped, when the tyres are warm and you're doing over 60mph, the steering gains feel, weight and response, encouraging you to put some energy through the chassis. You can trust it, exploit it and, more crucially, derive huge satisfaction from nibbling away at its limits. In 'Race' mode it can even be steered on the throttle, the relaxed ASR thresholds allowing the balance and attitude of the car to shift subtly from the faithful front-led neutrality to a delicious few degrees of rear steer that barely demands correction. Like hitting the perfect tee shot in golf and not feeling the ball leave the club, these fleeting moments of extracting the maximum from the Enzo feel unbelievably sweet.

If the acceleration is dizzying and the chassis intoxicating, the braking is nothing short of astonishing. The brakes have an invincible feel, delivering retardation of such raw power you simply slam into the seat belts when your right foot goes for the broad, drilled pedal. All the inconsistency evaporates with temperature, leaving you with a brilliantly firm pedal and instantaneous stopping ability that makes a mockery of any other high performance car on the road. The harder you work them, the better they get, gleefully grinding and rumbling with the vocal abrasiveness of a Bernard Manning stand-up routine.

As you can probably tell, the Enzo has blown us away. It might not be the fastest of all but, from where I'm sitting, a few tenths deficit is a small price to pay for its incredible accessibility. Ferrari shouldn't lose any sleep about failing to usurp the Macca's place in the record books, for building the second most accelerative but most exploitable supercar of all-time is a mighty achievement.

The Old Man would be proud.