Matt Prior

What with the Ferrari F80 and Bugatti W16 Mistral tested on these pages last week and a Lotus Evija road test due next week, it feels like it might be time to revisit the question: 'How fast is too fast?'

- Matt Prior

I have a quote, which I've used before but I'll use again. “A Porsche 911 Turbo’s limits are only attainable under conditions of total brain fade on the road,” a copy of Autocar once said.

Was that written recently, about the latest and greatest four-wheel-drive 641bhp 911?

No, it was in 1978, when the Turbo had less than half that power.

Cars have become inextricably faster since then, yet roads are far busier, their condition is worse and surveillance-by-public means that if you stayed on the throttle in a modern supercar for anything more than a few seconds, the crash would end up on Instagram in a moment and in a police force's Operation Snap inbox shortly after that.

In that environment, then, what's the benefit of having a new supercar/hypercar with 1184bhp (F80), or 1578bhp (Mistral), or 2013bhp (Evija)? No race track allows them to reach their top speeds and, as I think we correctly surmised in 1978, you couldn't use a quarter/fifth/seventh of the power on the road.