My only problem with heaven is I can’t see how just one place can be heavenly to all who earn the right to go there. My mother-in-law’s heaven would be a vegetable patch the size of Saturn, my daughters’ some ghastly pink paradise full of magic castles, fairies and princesses.

My particular heaven would be the Nürburgring’s northern loop, but that still leaves the vexed question of what I’m going to drive when I get there. Staying within the realms of road cars – we’ll run out of magazine if I start debating the relative merits of a Lola T70 Mk3B and a short-tail, 5.0-litre Porsche 917K – I always imagined it would be a Ferrari F40. I’ve driven more than 1000 cars since I first pedalled Ferrari’s greatest road car and still it stands proud of them all. But then I drove a plastic-bodied, pushrod-powered, South African-built replica of a slightly obscure mid-’60s American race car. And now I’m not so sure.

The Superformance Le Mans Coupé, a recreation of the 1964 Cobra Daytona Coupé, is one of the most thrilling things I have ever had the pleasure to drive, and not just because it is astonishingly, absurdly fast. Truth is, it connected with me to a depth I didn’t think modern road cars could reach any more. There are two reasons and the first is my love of ’60s automotive Americana. Muscle cars are a breed apart, as distinct as Italian supercars or the Porsche 911, and until you’ve at least blagged a ride in one, your automotive education is incomplete. I’ve raced a Camaro, coveted Corvettes and come within about 10 minutes of flying to California to buy a Charger.