First I’d like to apologise to Jeremy’s fans for taking over his column this week. I’m not sure where he is, even though I work with him. This time last year a daily newspaper published a photograph of him in swimming trunks on the beach in Barbados. The headline said: “How about a Top Gear special on tyres, Jeremy (start with your spare one)”.

Quite amusing but it wasn’t so funny when later that week a burglar (who’d caught on to the fact he was away) bluffed his way into Clarkson’s London flat by telling the porter he was Clarkson’s nephew. He got away with quite a haul.

So now Jeremy doesn’t announce where he’s going. A few weeks ago he was preparing to drive to the North Pole in a Toyota pickup truck, so maybe he’s there right now, banging into igloos and polar bears. On the other hand he could be at home cleaning the automatic rifle that he keeps clipped to the dashboard of his ex-military Land Rover. If I were a burglar I’d be thinking: “Do I feel lucky?”

What I do know is that Clarkson will be jealous when he sees the car I got my hands on. It’s called a Spyker Laviolette and it’s so exclusive that if you order one you can watch it being made on a webcam. The camera points at a workstation at the assembly plant in the tiny town of Zeewolde in Holland. During the four weeks it takes to build the car, you can log on and see four Dutchmen wearing name badges fit together aluminium body panels, bolt the engine into place and wire up the dashboard. It’s a bit like Big Brother for petrolheads and it’s a good way to check whether the salesman is telling the truth when he says the factory is working flat out to finish your car.

If you’re spending £210,000 then you expect that kind of personalised touch, according to Victor Muller, the 47-year-old entrepreneur who not only revived the luxury Spyker name (it folded in 1925) but in seven years has turned it into the world’s fastest growing supercar brand. Muller’s philosophy is straightforward: people will pay for exclusivity. “No one on this globe needs a Spyker,” he admits. “Nobody needs a Louis Vuitton bag or Dolce & Gabbana evening gown. But we’re all buying them because we can.”

When he says “we’re all buying them”, he’s referring to the international wealthy elite. You won’t find Spykers in your average showroom. The company displays its wares at places such as the Concorso d’Eleganza on Lake Como, the Top Marques supercar show in Monaco and the Emirates Millionaire Show.

Muller, who made his first fortune as a venture capitalist, decided that modern off-the-shelf sports cars were too ordinary. So he came up with the idea of building a Louis Vuitton bag that you could drive. The Laviolette’s got those little touches that fans of designer goods adore: knurled aluminium knobs; a gearstick with grooves that looks vaguely pornographic; and wheel spokes shaped like propellers. First shown as a prototype in 2001 it has finally made it into full production with help from Lotus to improve handling.

The interior is straight from Jules Verne — upholstered like a Victorian drawing room in quilted leather and bristling with futuristic gimmicks. To get into the car you press a button behind the wing mirror and the door scissors skywards on a single damped hinge. It takes expensive engineering to make that work, and for a low-volume car it is impressively put together.

Forget about electronic driver aids or soundproofing, though. What this car oozes is power, speed and loudness. Before you start the engine you lift a red safety toggle on the dashboard and flick a switch, as you would in an aircraft. The company’s blurb claims its design inspiration came from jet fighters, hence the ducts and scoops and bits of flying memorabilia on the bodywork. (Spyker made planes as well as cars during the first world war.)

The car weighs only 2,805lb (less than the ultra-light Lamborghini Superleggera) so you can imagine what happens when you let loose the 400bhp from the V8 engine. This is the same 4.2 litre as in the Audi S4, but whereas in the Audi it is whisper-quiet and smooth, in the Spyker it’s a beast. It’s housed inches behind your head in a glass-topped engine bay and when you put your foot down it kicks you in the back.

I wasn’t with Chuck Yeager in the X-1 when he first went from transonic to supersonic but I imagine the sensation was something similar. Make sure you have no more than a light lunch before you test drive it. And try to forget there are no airbags.

What makes the Laviolette different from other fast cars is that you feel every bump and crease in the road. It uses the rigid chassis built for its sister car, the C8 Spyder, and at speed the chronometer-style dashboard instruments are shaken to a blur. At 90mph I could no longer read the speedometer. The lack of suspension and the absence of power steering make the Laviolette a challenge to drive but Spyker is unapologetic. “We don’t do conventional,” said a representative, a trifle smugly. “But you wouldn’t expect a supermodel to do housework, would you?” Interesting analogy.

Spyker has six models in its range. The two most eccentric are due next year: the D12 Peking to Paris, a sport utility vehicle named after a historic cross-continent race in which an original Spyker participated, and the £334,000 C12 Zagato — a limited edition (24 are being made) with a 6 litre engine.

The Laviolette is the normal sibling but it’s still strictly for the enthusiast. On the car I borrowed the gearlever had to be wrestled into reverse because of a faulty component. The clutch and the footbrake — which is not servo assisted — are so ridiculously heavy that driving it in traffic feels like doing gym presses with your feet (Muller says new cars will have brakes that are servo assisted and existing models can be fitted with a brake booster). The glass roof doesn’t open and only parts of the side windows slide down, so it’s easy to feel as though you’re in a greenhouse.

Normally these sort of complaints would mean nul point. But by making a car that’s like nothing else on offer, Spyker is hoping it will be judged by different standards. Certainly you’ll find few owners complaining. That’s because they won’t have bought it as a main car but for having a blast down the Corniche at weekends and showing off to their friends.

The cost of accessories is even more eyewatering than the price of the car: a four-piece luggage set for the minuscule boot is £12,337; the platinum Chronoswiss Spyker Pilot watch (with chassis number engraved) is £23,987.63. There’s even a Louis Vuitton tool kit (£2,467.50), though it’s hard to imagine many owners getting their hands dirty. Happily the ignition key, crafted to resemble a gentleman’s pocket watch and etched with the company’s motto — Nulla tenaci invia est via (for the tenacious, no road is impassable) — is standard.

Whatever you think of its products, the company’s ambition is impressive. It recently made the leap into the big league when it paid £57m for its own Formula One racing team — Spyker F1 — and while it delivered only 48 cars in 2005 it now has an order book of more than 300.

Not that these cars are about to become common. On my drive around some well-heeled London streets where every other car is an Aston, Bentley or Ferrari, the Spyker was a hit: well-dressed men stopped to look as I passed, teenagers pointed their mobile phone cameras and women at pavement cafes peered over their sunglasses to get a better look. If you want to be noticed but don’t want to arrive in a Ferrari or a Phantom, then a Spyker is the radical alternative.

So who is buying them? Well, Busta Rhymes for a start (he’s an American rapper facing trial for assault having allegedly beaten up his driver and attacked a fan); Jennifer Lopez bought one for her husband; Sharon Stone drove one in Basic Instinct II (Spyker pronounced this a triumph of product placement but as nobody went to see the film it wasn’t). The biggest market, as you might expect, is the oil-rich playgrounds of the Middle East.

If I had the money I’d pause before opening my wallet, though. First, I would think hard about whether it would be better to spend it instead on a £179,890 Ferrari 599 GTB or even on a £350,000 Pagani Zonda C12S. Second, I’d wonder whether if I bought the Spyker I would be buying a car or a fashion accessory. I think I can guess Jeremy’s reaction: “Thank you, but I didn’t ask for a handbag.”

The big man is back next week.

Vital statistics

Model Spyker C8 Laviolette

Engine 4172cc, eight cylinders

Power 400bhp

Torque 354 lb ft

Transmission Six-speed manual

Fuel 21.2mpg (combined cycle)

CO2 n/a

Acceleration 0-62mph: 4.5sec

Top speed 187mph Price £186,061 (£210,000, full options)

Rating 3/5

Verdict Daring, different, daft