POLARISING EXPRESS

An SUV? A sports car? A do-everything GT? We test the groundbreaking Purosangue every extreme way we can think of

- James Dennison

EVERYWHERE I LOOK IS WHITE. A NEVERending and all-enveloping white that could hide everything or nothing behind its infinite veil. Thousands of ice flakes, each one perfectly unique, rain down from the sky like the frozen tears of an army of heavenly warriors, trapped for all eternity in the colourless cloud all around. How did I get here?

My car sits in the landscape like a drop of dried blood on a pristine white tablecloth. In front of me is a looming rock face, towering above the winding, treacherous Alpine pass we have just scaled. Or, at least, that is what the map says. I cannot see either of them. The deathly silent aggression of the passing snowstorm has turned a vista fit for The Sound of Music into The Day After Tomorrow.

My mission is to somehow slide my two-tonne SUV around the next bend-just to see if it is possible... Narrow and flanked by a stone wall on one side and Armco on the other, it is the last spot I would have picked if I were being sane and rational. But I am driving the Purosangue, a car built for extremes... so that is what it is going to get.

Stationary, foot on the brake, I go to pull the right-hand gearshift paddle. Stretching almost the full height of the steering wheel, its action is mechanical and precise-the cold metal holding back the sweat trying to break through my nervous fingertips. Another twist of a switch, a triple chime as the stability and traction control deactivate. You are on your own now, son. Send it.