A future car love that dare not speak its name

I need to have a personal talk with you. Send the kiddies (those under 25) out of the room.

You see, I've just read a book by a serious person that seems to suggest we could not only fall in love with our cars (nothing new there), but, well how can I put this, we could indulge in a bit of horizontal folk dancing with them.

Rob Brooks is the Professor of Evolution at the University of NSW and he writes: "A human could think they love a machine. Could a machine love a human?" His book is called Artificial Intimacy: Virtual Friends, Digital Lovers and Algorithmic Matchmakers and he describes a future in which you and your car could be more than just friends. Cars "that engage our human needs for connection, intimacy, and sexual satisfaction."

I don't want to in any way denigrate the relationship you have with your Camry, Commodore, Captiva, Carnival or Calais, but can I subtly suggest if you are thinking about moving past first base with the beauty under the car port, why not consider something with a bit more passion.

Something like the very pretty red, 1971 Ferrari Dino 246 GT Coupe, with sensual beige leather upholstery for around $600k at Shannons online auction starting on Tuesday.

Shockingly, my choice of fantasy motoring partner is electric! And it's from Croatia. And the owner's name sounds Australian. Mate Rimac is about 12 years old (well 33 and that could be 12 from where I'm looking). At 21, he founded Rimac Automobili to build electric supercars. Today he has more than 1000 employees and supplies evil electric bits to Porsche, Jaguar, Aston Martin and Koenigsegg. Now he's launched a 1400KW hypercar that gets to 100km/h in less time than it takes you to say one-two. It gets to 300km/h in the time it takes you to say devet sekundi is Croatian for nine seconds. And it's good for 412km/h.

As Road & Track's Alex Goy says, an electric car "proving it's very quick isn't new, but the step up in performance between 'quite fast' and 'so fast it makes breathing difficult' is quite something."

Of course, the body is all carbon fibre but restrained. The inside fits two well-built persons and their luggage. And the price? Well, who can put a price on true love? Mate can – $3.6 million drive away no more to pay.

Talking of fast cars: the Monaco GP procession, where it's hard to lose from the front of the grid, saw the first eight on the grid basically fill the first eight positions. Mad Max won, Hamo came seventh from seventh on the grid and Dan Ricciardo came 12th from 12th.