Even with a pristine model I'd be lucky to escape a £3,000 mauling on every one of its frequent garage visits. "Especially when the window is 10ft above the sloping, ice-covered ground."With estimates as low as £15,000 (for a 1984 400i GT), a bid wasn't entirely out of the question - given a quick remortgage But I also knew that this cost would be just the beginning. "John Travolta, Robbie Williams and a Spice Girl, Jean Claude van Damme and Victoria Principal have all stayed here," says Laura, inadvertently conjuring a fearful "snowed in with..." scenario.For the last eight years the Palace has kicked off its winter season with the Bonhams sale, despite the logistics involved in hauling precious museum pieces up into the Alps and then displaying them on white carpet in the hotel's subterranean car park."Getting a million-dollar Ferrari through the window of a hotel ballroom while it's minus 10 and snowing is a problem," concedes Simon Kidston, the auctioneer and Bonhams' European president. "We want guests to feel like this is a home from home." The key to this, apparently, is that staff stay on average 14 years, getting to know regular guests' whims and quirks. "It's always been a family run business," Andreas's wife, Laura, told me as we sat in the bar looking out at distant skiers snaking down the mountain sides like tipsy raindrops. From Ernst Scherz it passed to his son Ernst Andreas Scherz and then his grandson, Andreas Ernst Scherz (someone get that family a book of baby names). Inside, the hotel is a mix of Swiss guest house, albeit of the highest order (pine furniture, hunting trophies and massive open fire places), and international five-star luxury (there's a Harry Winston jewellers in the lobby and Moulton Brown bottles fill the marble mosaic bathrooms).The hotel has been owned by the Scherz family since the 1930s.

Liveried doormen glide around, opening doors and whisking both luggage and car away. This is JG Ballard territory, I know, but with this car refuelling is tantamount to an act of sexual congress.You approach the Palace via a steep, winding drive, arriving at a grand covered entrance. And, of course, it is so lusciously sexy that the only thing better than driving one would be driving it and watching from the outside at the same time. It is a car that can soothe your nerves or goose your bumps, depending on your mood. The Maserati's reserves of torque mean you can drive it in lazy automatic mode (though it's still smoother to change gears yourself using the paddle shift).

We dispatched the tedious plains of eastern France - and a quantifiable portion of North Sea oil reserves - in a morning filled with exhilarating surges, tempered only by the occasional appearance of something blue in the rear view. A Range Rover might have been more practical for this snow-bound Shangri-La, but I had a few hundred miles of motorway to gobble to get there and, for that, few cars can match a Quattroporte. If, like me, you think twice about ordering a starter at Pizza Express, Gstaad will expose you for a grovelling pauper within seconds. So it is crucial to at least turn up in the right car I chose a glassy black Maserati Quattroporte. Gstaad's high street is lined with furriers, jewellers and delicatessens - there is a Co-op, but it sells champagne and foie gras, and most people send their au pairs to forage. I wanted to see for myself and, who knows, maybe bag a cut-price Dino. The turrets of the Palace Hotel loom over the resort as if it were its own private fiefdom, which, in a way, it is The Palace is Gstaad.

But you'll need money to burn to experience the ultimate in Alpine luxury. Mid-December at the Gstaad Palace Hotel, as the bankers, the brokers and the just plain beautiful arrive for the start of the winter season, is not, then, the most obvious time to come looking for a bargain, particularly if it's a Ferrari you're after. But I had heard that bargains were indeed to be found every year at Bonhams' sale of "exceptional Ferrari motor cars" held there every December. Though poor people aren't actually banned from Gstaad, from the moment you arrive it is clear that this Swiss ski resort is an exclusive winter playground for the super rich. In most other European countries deaths have fallen by an average of 20 to 30 per cent since the 1970s.Sion Morgan.

Some 70 per cent of those women were not even sure if intercourse had happened. In these cases, the conviction rate is just 5.5 per cent.51,108 DRINK-RELATED hospital admissions in 2004 and 2005, a rise of 28 per cent since 1997.45% OF WOMEN later regret drunken sexual encounters; 44 per cent find it difficult to socialise without a drink, and 73 per cent have regretted making a telephone call or sending a text while under the influence.250% RISE IN liver cirrhosis deaths among women in England and Wales since the 1950s. The figure for non-alcoholic women is 8.8 per cent.35% OF WOMEN after reporting being raped admit to they had been drinking before to the offence. This is roughly equal to 175ml of red wine per day.40% OF ALCOHOLIC women in Britain have tried to commit suicide. The growing culture of drinking among British women is regarded as the main reason for the reduced difference.23% OF WOMEN aged between 16 and 24 drink more than 21 units of alcohol per week The advised limit is 14 units, or two per day. The average amount that British women will drink annually by 2009, according to a European survey by Datamonitor. This is the equivalent of three large glasses of wine a day and would mean a doubling of alcohol consumption in a decade.80.7 LIFE EXPECTANCY of a woman born in 2004 The figure for men is 76 In 1990 the difference was 7.5 years.