“On clear roads, with your foot flat, you were in each gear for a startlingly short time. it was wraaap, shift; wraaap, shift; wraaap, shift. first was gone at 65mph and 3.5 seconds; second in only another 2.4 seconds at 95mph; third a tad longer at 3.9 seconds with 125mph on the unerringly accurate speedo. and you were in fourth for just three seconds before you saw 150mph on the clock. total time from standstill: a blur-filled 12.8 seconds.

“Once, i eased off when i thought i’d reached about 150, glanced at the speedo and saw i was beyond 180. in a previously quick car, you might have been at 120 or 130.” 

The doyen of motoring journalists Mel Nichols writes about his world-exclusive drive in McLaren F1 prototype XP5 for Kidston in 2022