So I've been in love ? genuine doe-eyed, lip-trembling, heart-skipping-beats in love ? three times before. There've been infatuations (Steffi Graf, Meg Ryan, the Norwegian women football team's goalkeeper), but genuine spine-tingling love? The German, the blonde from Manchester, the traffic-stopping South American ? and now, fourth time lucky, another German. And by the time you read this, we'll have broken up, a beautiful but fleeting relationship nipped tragically in the bud.

I've never been a religious petrolhead ? the last car I bought was chosen to no small degree because of the colour, and the fact that it looked like something James Bond might have driven. The secret language of car lovers is completely alien to me: words like torque and revs go right over my head, and 'Top Gear' is a passing distraction rather than devotional offering. Cars? No real interest, I'm afraid... until now.

On Friday morning I slipped behind the wheel of the aforementioned German: the low slung, growling, straining-at-the-leash Audi R8. Mine for the weekend, it looked like an entertaining diversion, but not much more ? good for roaring down highways and attracting a little attention, perhaps, but not a great deal more. I got that one spectacularly wrong.

The small of your back gets a solid thump as the car takes off, roaring from throaty idle to full cry explosion in a blur of burnt rubber. You can nudge along in low gear quite comfortably, but there's always the feeling that you're holding onto the reins, waiting to unleash the automotive beast. And a decent nudge of the accelerator sends you racing past anything else on the road: I don't know that I've ever had quite as much fun before.

The driving's not the extent of it, though, gleeful as tearing down highways in a supercar might be. The R8 turns heads like the McGregor sisters wish they could; highlight of the weekend was a grinning toothless local telling me that I could braai a crayfish on the engine, a V8 monster that leers out at the world through the glass back. I pulled up outside parliament on Friday afternoon, usually a fierce wall of impenetrability; security waved me through with a beaming grin, cheerfully oblivious to the possibility of me having a bootful of Semtex. Except that the R8 doesn't have a boot, just a small cubby hole of a space in front. One small blemish, then...

... but one I can live with. Yes, you need the passenger seat if you're hauling golf clubs around, and you sit disconcertingly below the eye line of the standard minibus taxi. But the simple thrill of slipping behind the wheel, juggling the throttle, and then opening up down a stretch of road, makes for adrenaline-heavy excitement. Driving the R8? Seriously, seriously cool.

And seriously, seriously addictive, which is why I'll be handing it back most reluctantly this morning. Until this weekend, cars were a nice diversion, but nothing more; now, I'm completely hooked, and totally in love. The easy purr in neutral, the belligerent snarl when you drop a gear and take off, the self-indulgent knowledge that the world's craning necks. It's ridiculously expensive, wild at heart, and far too much car for me to be driving... and I adore every inch of it. Lovestruck? Oh yes.

  • Contact Dan at dan@metropolis.co.za