Aaaand, they were doing on-the-spot test drives for the RX-8 at the expo this week, and there just happened to be a slot available right at the time I was there, so, what the hell, off I went.

Bonus feature – the free slot was for the less powerful of the two versions, but the guy next to me was under 30 and they wouldn't let him drive the more grunty one, so we swapped. Woo!

Probably the most memorable bit was the acceleration from standstill to the 8500rpm redline in first gear without any noticeable flat spots. It was just, wooooooosh, 38mph.

“Don't do that in second”, said the bloke. I concurred.

The RX-8 is now on my christmas list.