The first time I saw a TVR Cerbera was in a magazine. I didn't like it. Not being a fan of the looky-likey-MGB TVR Chimaera, a long wheelbase version with a leadsled roof hardly improved the proposition. The doors were too big as well.

There was another reason for my disdain: allegedly it would be faster than my recently acquired Griffith 500 that, at point of ordering, had been the King Mentalist TVR. Now a mentaller mentalist was potentially in the offing and I wasn't happy.

The first time I saw a Cerbera in the fibre was at Silverstone in 1996 on a trackday. It was also the first time I'd heard one. "Eeurgh! Is that a V8?" I thought. Peter Wheeler was hammering around the track at a fair old lick in the pink development Cerbera. I had to admit, the interior was something else though. My, oh my, that did float my boat!

During the course of 1997 I became a bit of a TVR Tuscan Challenge groupie while I pondered taking up motor racing. Whilst pondering, I did a couple more trackdays and to my intense irritation, customer Cerberas had started to appear. I'd seen the Autocar front cover that screamed "0-100 in 9 seconds dead" and it confirmed my worst fears: my Griff had lost its crown as King Mentalist.

But I hadn't.

I would hurl my Griff around the track in a bid to overtake, out-brake, out-corner, out-mental the Cerberas. Never underestimate the amount of adjustment available in the nut behind the wheel. I recall an enormous spin that occurred as I entered the Hangar Straight at Silverstone trying to carry every precious mile-per-hour out of Chapel to get past a red Cerbera in front. I was obsessed, probably dangerously so. [probably?- ed.]

Finally, in the summer of 1997 I got my National B racing licence and had my first race, in the last round of the '97 Tuscan Challenge, saving me and the Griff from a serious mishap.

Then there was the rumour of something even mentaller than the Cerbera coming along: a 4.5 litre Cerbera GT, no less. By now, the styling of the Cerbera had grown on me, big time.

And by the time of the '97 Motor Show I'd really got the TVR bug. I owned a Griffith 500, had ordered the Griffith Speed Six at the '96 Motor Show, had bought a Challenge car and - given the expected delays with the Griffith Speed Six - decided to order a Cerbera GT for delivery in February 1998. Having piloted a Challenge car, the thought of getting a version of THAT engine in a road car was enough to cause a damp patch in my trousers.

The Griffith 500 had been my first sports car - in fact it was the first brand new car I had bought for myself. I had specified it conservatively in nice dark blue pearl with blue and magnolia leather with half an eye on resale value.

But the Cerbera GT would be different as this was definitely going to be a "keeper". I picked Imperial Blue for the exterior, the most magical blue ever in my opinion, and there began the trouble. The available blue hides and carpets were the wrong tones of blue. A new blue would be required. Similarly, I felt the clocks should be painted the same colour as the body. And I couldn't stand that ghastly hessian nonsense on the doors and other places...

First reply from Blackpool was: No. My retort: "It says in your brochure that you can do what customers want." Second reply from Blackpool was, if not a complete telephone number, at least a dialing code of a price. To soften the impact of the cost of dying wool carpets and hides in Imperial Blue, it just so happened that two other TVR Centre customers were ordering Imperial Blue Cerberas so the cost was split three ways. The £650 to paint the clocks blue was all mine though. As was displacing hessian from everywhere but the headlining. I had managed to ramp what started as a £45,000 car into a nigh-on £60,000 car by the time I'd finished. But it was perfect!

I took delivery of my Cerbera 4.5 (the GT name had been dropped) on Valentines Day 1998, quite an apt date to start a love affair that has continued for eight years and shows no signs of waning.

I got the obligatory running-in period out of the way PDQ in order to get cracking with my new road-going jet. The fact that it made my old Griff seem pedestrian was an early observation that I found quite surprising: "Bugger me, it's quick!". The shove the Cerbera has when you flex your big toe at 110mph is something that can still make me laugh out loud after years of doing it.

To this day, I don't believe I have ever actually achieved its full speed potential. It's not for the want of trying, and please don't underestimate just how high the numbers are that I've seen. It's just that I've always run out of space before I've got past 7,000rpm in top and yet it's always felt like it would go until it hit the limiter at 7,500rpm - or pull another gear and carry on.

Top speed, though, isn't what floats my boat. Tarmac terrorism is and loads of oomph up to about 160mph is adequate for that. The Cerbera is a 160mph car with about 30mph left for emergencies. I always said to Peter Wheeler: "I can't imagine what you'll come up with to get me out of this car."

The fact that I still have the car today, proves that as far as I'm concerned, TVR still hasn't produced anything to displace the Cerbera 4.5 as King Mentalist.

Over the years, my blue 4.5 and I have amassed a volume of "Oh my God!" memories. Tales from the dark side next time...