Cross traffic was stopped as he rolled up to the intersection. The beast was purring, belying the 620 hp turbo charged engine. It wanted to be released, and so did the driver who looked expectantly at the two officers who sat on their motorcycles. They checked with each other and then waved his Porsche GT2RS onto the main road, two more officers standing ahead and to the left, their motorcycles flashing blue and white lights, blocking the way of other cars. They allowed this car dominance, this creation of art and physics. This car, one of only 500 built, now owned the dark, twilight covered roads of downtown LA.

Its driver turned onto the straightaway they had cleared and quickly shifted through the gears, the car’s refined growl did not waver, but moved elegantly up and up, eating the open pavement of the city. It came to an intersection, downshifting into a screeching drift, deliberately leaving rubber onto another cleared road. The city, at least this section, was now his playground, negotiated by the producers of Top Gear and the authorities of one of the most wild municipalities in the United States. The police stood aside, if only for a short time, for this man-made beauty of form and function.

What a great episode.