But because you sit so low, you’ll swear that anything taller than a Nissan Qashqai has its main beams on, given how dazzling headlights are in the mirrors. By the time I reach my overnight base, I’ve decided I’d fit tinted film over them if the car were mine.
The morning is bright and, because days like this are my favourite reason to get out of bed, so is my mood. There’s no guarantee of seeing aircraft in the Mach Loop. You just turn up at a lay-by on the A487, walk up a hill, and hope.
I don’t mind either way. The drive over is pretty much all good back roads. This CSR’s 2.0-litre engine tune is the same as the 420 model’s and is a combo that hasn’t been offered in the CSR chassis before. Continental CSRs were previously running with the 485 model’s higher-revving 225bhp engine.
But if you think that having only 210bhp (at 7600rpm) or 150lb ft (at 6300rpm) is a downgrade, remember this is a car that still weighs only 620kg and it has one of the slickest, sharpest manual gearshifts in production.
Those power and torque figures arrive at high revs, so you need to work the gears, whereupon it’s amazingly urgent. At low revs it’s still responsive and linear, but at one point I leave it in fourth to overtake a truck and a few seconds later realise I should have picked third.
But even with a clear sky (and the roof down), the road isn’t going to dry today and, in these conditions, it doesn’t pay to be too liberal with the throttle because the Seven can and will break traction.
