You don’t know whether to laugh or cry but make a noise somewhere in-between. It just looks so, well, improbable. It arrives as a Bentley and departs as an Italianate GT, the bluff front end being instantly recognisable, the dramatically arched roofline and cropped Kamm tail rather less so. Then there are the go-quicker stripes and roundels that suggest it’s a racing car, except the Gooda Special has only ever ventured trackside twice in competition as far as we are aware. What’s more, its circuit forays were some 47 years apart. Delve more deeply into the car’s history, however, and it transpires that this most rakish of Crewe ships was also a concours queen. It’s nothing if not a contradiction.

But then so much about this remarkable machine is mired in obscurity and conjecture. It rather goes with the territory. As is so often the way with these things, web forums are awash with hypotheses. That the car is a modified R-type Continental (it isn’t). Either that, or it’s some sort of Bentley prototype (ditto). But by concentrating on what it isn’t, you’re in danger of missing out on what it is: a highly distinctive one-off that is a riot to drive.

Heeling into wind, Goodwood 2014.