Thank Frankel It's... Monday ‑ The Ferrari of my childhood dreams

But then, years later, I drove one and, oh my, what a terrible disappointment it was. Actually, it was a 328GTB, but that just made it worse because it was slow and treacherous which made me think the 308 with even less power and skinnier tyres would only be slower and more treacherous still. And then one of my colleagues blew its engine to bits doing nothing more than sitting in heavy traffic on the M25.

Ever since, whenever anyone has suggested they might think about buying a 308, I’ve just snarled ‘get a 911’ and left it at that. Until last weekend, when I drove another.

It was bought quite recently by an old friend who lives in a quiet part of the countryside and, like every machine he owns, it is in the best condition for a car that’s going to get used. Which means it’s perfect: to me, the moment a car becomes too good to use is the moment it stops being a car and becomes an ornament. And he asked if I might like to give it a try. Briefly the memory of the 328 came back to mind and I wondered how I might honestly tell him what I thought if the 308 was that bad or worse. But then it was a Sunday morning, the roads were deserted and it was a 1970s V8 Ferrari I was being offered. What kind of bloody idiot turns that down?

Not this one. Wonderfully, there were no instructions other than to go a decent distance and enjoy myself. No telling me to avoid second gear until the gearbox oil was warm, no rev limit, no plea to take it easy. I knew, and he knew I knew, which was all that mattered. Best of all, I was to be alone: I hate driving other people’s cars when they are on board because I get all self-conscious and make a pig’s breakfast of it.

So off I toddled feeling all sorts of warm thoughts about the incredible visibility the pencil-thin pillars provide, the airiness of the cockpit and the compactness of its dimensions: its direct descendant, the 488GTB is an incredible 23cm wider. The driving position is inexplicable and the first thing I’d do were this my car is fit some kind of spacer to the wheel to bring it nearer to me, but I was less bothered by the pedal offset and switchgear arrangement, though of everything I probably took most care of those spindly column stalks, for I am told they are both difficult and expensive to source.

As ever I was gentle with it at first and had forgotten just how long it takes for the oil of such cars to warm through: the oil temperature gauge is a much-missed instrument these days, leading us to revving engines whose water may be warm but which still have stone cold oil sitting in their sumps.

It probably took 10 miles before all the needles were where I wanted them, 10 miles to savour the fine ride, exquisite steering and build anticipation. Then I just let it do its thing. That it felt faster than expected was probably only because I expected it to feel slow: it’s not – I’d say it has modern Golf GTI acceleration, or something close thereto. But it’s the way power was delivered from 3000rpm I found so enchanting. It’s not quite linear but builds as the revs rise; there’s no moment when you feel it ‘come onto the cam’ as we used to say in the days before horizontal torque curves, it just feels that little bit stronger with every additional 500rpm. By 6000rpm, it’s a yowling, howling joy, by 7000rpm – well, I don’t know because while these engines are safe to 7700rpm and beyond, this is my mate’s car and you always leave big margins.

But the bigger surprise was how sweetly it handled. The gearbox requires precision and a certain deftness if every up and downshift is to be completely smooth but everything about this car makes you want to drive it that way. You guide it into corners, savour the feel of the steering and its sensibly slow rack, feeling the forces building up in the suspension and those skinny and oh-so old fashioned 205/70 Michelin XWX tyres start to earn their keep. Because it doesn’t cover your mistakes like moderns do, it’s a car that makes you drive well, and we all know that sensation and how good it feels. And unlike that 328 (which now seems almost certain to have been a bad and unrepresentative car), it felt completely reassuring, at least at fast road speeds.

So I have to take back all those things I thought about the 308 for so long. A good one is a marvel and, for around £75,000, something of a bargain right now I would expect.