So, does the reality feel like the safe, conventional choice? Well yes, actually. And, um, no. The Boxster S certainly has the feeling of total structural and dynamic integrity that I had hoped for from my first Porsche. It's swallowed two people's luggage for a ten-day continental jaunt and covered 3000 miles in its first month with utter reliability. On the other hand, I'm not sure that a two-seater mid-engined sports car endowed with a flat-six whose barks and howls prickle the back of your neck and a chassis which is every bit as good as everyone tells you, is particularly conventional.

As this is my first Porsche I went the whole hog when ordering the S, ticking the option box marked 'factory collection', and although the factory tour sounded a bit anorakish to me, it was actually pretty interesting. At the end of the tour, being whisked away to pick up my car while everyone else was shown the factory gates felt great.

On first sight my predictable choice of arctic silver proved the right one; it's the classic Boxster colour. And the thin-spoked 18in Carrera wheels lighten the Boxster's profile and show the (bigger and red on the S) callipers to great effect. The sports suspension option - uprated anti-roll bars, shocks and springs, 10mm lower ride height - combines with the bigger wheels to give the S a more purposeful stance. Gives it a much more nuggety ride and flatter cornering stance, too, imbuing the whole car with a focused feel lacking as standard.

The hand-over took nearly an hour, by the end of which I'd been convinced I was being entrusted with a precious jewel. Driving back to Blighty was a great way of handling the running-in.

How have my first few weeks of Porsche ownership been? Well, it's early on a cool, bright Sunday morning and the S, still only eight weeks old, is sitting in the barn, snout comprehensively covered in flies, interior dusty from 4500 miles of mainly top-down driving crammed into its short life. An ideal time to give it its first getting-to-know-you wash and polish, then? Er, no. I'm off for a blast across the moors, then maybe onto the coast... Which is what it's all about really, isn't it?