Sometimes a car comes along that takes accepted practice and turns it on its head. The Ferrari F12 is one of those cars. An enormous 730bhp and 509lb ft V12 driving exclusively through the rear wheels should really be a juggler’s handful, hard, aggressive and uncompromised. But the F12 is anything but - drive it slowly and it’s as docile as a yogic kitten.

And yet, when you decide to allow the car its head, it re-writes Newton’s immutables. Paul Horrell describes it as extraordinary “You’re over there almost before you’ve left here. Bang. The performance can seem like a dark, fathomless well. If you don’t calibrate your aim just-so before you throw the switch, more fool you.”

So not quite a kitten, then. But it’s the combination that impresses most, Paul Horrell again: “Breathtakingly beautiful, confident enough that it doesn’t need to be theatrical or bellicose. Sympathetically useable - but crazed and noisy when that’s what you want…”

Sounds good, huh? Well that’s the reason the Ferrari F12 is Top Gear Magazine’s Supercar of the Year 2012.

Read more in the Awards issue of Top Gear Magazine, on sale now…