If I had to nominate my favourite piece of design I'd probably go for the air intakes above the rear wheelarches, but to be honest there is hardly a line, curve, indentation or appendage on the 360 Modena which is anything other than a piece of automotive artistry. I could almost be happy owning one of these cars simply in order to park it outside the house and admire it.Almost. Let's tear ourselves away from gazing at that beautiful shape and climb aboard. Three things become apparent very quickly. First, the gorgeous interior is surprisingly spacious; the 360 is a very low car, but it also has more than enough headroom for someone measuring six foot three in his socks.Second, sock choice is in fact an important consideration, because despite the generally roomy cockpit the footwell is so cramped that a size eleven shoe can all too easily connect with the throttle and brake pedal at the same time. Not a good idea in a car with 400bhp on tap. Racing boots would be the best compromise, but I haven't brought any, so socks it is.Third - with no sock reference this time, you'll be pleased to hear - the mid-mounted 3.6-litre V8 engine is clearly visible through a transparent panel behind the seats. This is rather exciting, because there is something spine-tingling about being able to see a car's engine while you are driving it, even if in this case you have to glance in the rear view mirror to do so.That engine is pretty special. Any unit which produces 112bhp per litre without the benefit of forced induction is, pretty much by definition, a screamer, and "scream" is certainly the word to describe what goes on as the revcounter sweeps round to the 9000rpm maximum. But at the same time you get fantastic tractability. On level ground the 360 will pull away happily from tickover in sixth gear. It's also willing to give this a go if you're pointing slightly uphill, though that creates enough rumbling noises to suggest that you shouldn't try it too often.What this means is that although the 360 can, when required, be devastatingly quick, you can also pootle around gently as whim or circumstance dictate. The only time I felt that the car was really unhappy with life was when I found myself stuck in a motorway traffic jam, but that was probably because I had to keep pumping away at the rather heavy clutch. It just didn't feel right, though I have to say that there was no extra smell or apparent temperature increase to suggest that the car actually had a problem with this.In more normal motoring the clutch wasn't a problem once I got used to it. The gearchange, too (manual in the test car rather than the very popular F1-style electro-hydraulic version), was quite easy to use considering it's connected to what must be a very sturdy transmission. It actually feels slightly rubbery, though maybe that's because the traditional Ferrari slotted gate leads you to expect a race-style change.Appropriate to the performance, the braking system is a serious piece of kit, with 330mm diameter, 28mm thick Brembo discs at both ends grabbed by four-pot calipers. It's very effective, but again perfectly simple to use. Brushing the pedal and letting the car drift to a halt is just as easy as giving a more purposeful shove and making the thing stand on its nose.Handling . . . well, how do you test the roadholding of a car like this without taking it to a race circuit? Attempting to find the limit on a public road would be an insane effort. As it happened, I managed to pick the one wet day in an otherwise glorious week to try the 360, and to make matters worse I'd been warned beforehand that this particular car had just had new rear tyres fitted. "They need to be scrubbed in," the man from Ferrari warned - something I don't think anyone has ever said to me except in a motorsport situation.So: the wrong tyres on the driven wheels, and wet roads, and several hundred horsepower. Gulp. There was indeed a little bit of back-end squirming, but the 360 had plenty of excuse for that, and I don't think it would be an issue for most owners most of the time. And even with a certain amount of pussy-footing on corner exits, there's more than enough straight-line performance to get you from A to B as quickly as you could reasonably expect in any road car.Before the test I'd half expected that driving the 360 would be like trying to feed a cheese sandwich to a hungry tiger. Wrong. Driving the 360 is easy. Once you've got used to its super-fast responses and learned to control it with your toes and fingertips, it's a perfectly acceptable road car, combining racer-like performance with an ability to commute in heavy traffic without fuss (as long as you don't consider commuting in a Ferrari to be the ultimate in motoring sacrilege).And of course it is so, so beautiful. What multi-millionaire could ask for more? Engine 3586cc, 8 cylinders Power 400bhp Transmission 6-speed manual Fuel/CO2 14.7mpg / 440g/km Acceleration 0-62mph: 4.5 seconds Top speed "over 183mph" Price £103,275 Details correct at publication date
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