Inside the Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione

The world is filled with beautiful things: sunsets over Cardiff Bay, the first words of an infant, and Scarlett Johansson, to name but a few. But not one of these things is as stunning as the Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione.

We had a session with one yesterday and witnessed passers-by walking into lampposts. Grown men wept, children took pictures with their camera phones and married women scrawled their phone number on bits of paper -- not for us, but for the 8C.

A car this good-looking could easily get away with being pants, but the 8C performs like a thoroughbred supercar -- and a good one at that. It's built by Alfa Romeo, which is part of the Ferrari-owning Fiat group, so it's no surprise its V8 engine produces 444bhp at 7,000rpm and 354Nm of torque. The 8C goes from 0-60mph in 4.2 seconds and it won't stop going until it reaches just north of 180mph.

The tech's pretty sweet, too. It has automatic rain-sensing windscreen wipers, lights come on automatically when it gets dark, it accepts voice commands for the Bluetooth phone system, its engine computer is driver-programmable to limit you to specific speeds, and it has premium Bose speakers tuned specifically for the 8C's cabin.

Only 500 of these cars have been built, so we can understand why Alfa Romeo is charging £160,000 a pop. What we can't understand is why the paint job alone costs £15,000. Yes, it's the sexiest, deepest, purest shade of red we've ever seen, but £15,000? For paint? That just blows our tiny little minds.

If you're a premier league footballer, have the word 'Sheik' in your name, or you're some other git with more money than sense us, then head down to HR Owen's Alfa Romeo store in central London and get your wad out. If not, have a look at the pictures we've taken -- oh, and bring some napkins for the drool.