Last year's holiday was a family drive from Rome to northern Portugal via southern France, Monaco and Spain in the new Renault laguna. Now that was fun and memorable enough, but the torquey 2 litre oil burner didn't quite make the same impression as the prancing horse from Maranello. It was a bit of a spiritual journey for me to visit the Ferrari factory and Museum. After a great morning going through the Museum, we came out and spotted 2 parked nearby a souvenir shop, an F430 and an older 355 spider. Naturally, went for a sticky bik and sure enough there was a sign: 15 minutes for 80 Euro. Big smile on my face, told the missus I could forgo lunch for the next few days and went for a ride with the 430. We got out of the carpark, into a quiet back street and the bloke driving it, just floored it in race mode, shifting just below redline, well north of 8K. I never asked if the car was his or stolen, I didn't really care at this point. I can never forget the wall of noise coming from the angry V8 sitting a few inches behind you. We topped well over 250, couldn't read the speedo with the vibration. Few corners later, we come to a petrol station, he puts fuel in and tells me I can drive now. And here I was thinking the $10 entry into Zelda's Strip club was good value! For the next 20 minutes or so I got to punt $400K worth of Enzo's finest each way I wanted, in the quiet backstreets of Modena. He told me which way to go and left the driving to me. The car just felt so violent and angry that I probably left part of my fingernails stuck in the magnificent steering wheel. The F1 box was/is superb - sorry to break it to those with the ZF, but it is too s-l-o-w Needless to say, I had a grin on my face you could not wipe off for the next month. The missus also made a comment about me giggling like a little school girl when I walked out. My pilgrimage to the holiest of Meccas was complete.