I don't follow Navajo or Huichol religious practices, and I've never been the thirsty, old-time cowboy seeking nourishment from the wrong cactus. And as much as I enjoy the late writer's work, I'm no Hunter S. Thompson. Thus, I've never wandered the desert southwest on a peyote-induced journey of euphoria and self-enlightenment toward "the heart of the American dream," as Thompson did in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. But in car culture, Italian sports cars — unattainable or even alien to the general public — and packing extreme potency in a stunningly beautiful package - seem to contain some psychotropic qualities similar to those of the Divine Cactus. And Lamborghinis have been at the heart of my dreams since I first pinned a Countach poster up on my bedroom wall. Maybe it's just the blazing sun and my lack of hydration as I'm cruising topless down Highway 15, but the Lamborghini Murciélago LP640 Roadster has put me in an altered state of consciousness.

My adventure starts around noontime at the Los Angeles airport Westin, where I pick up the pearlescent orange LP640 Roadster in front of a valet whose bitterness over not driving the car scented the air as heavily as the smell of clutch and brakes. The car's first side effect, anxiety, kicks in before I can even turn the key. The cost of Lamborghini's most expensive model — a staggering $405,000, as tested — is more than enough to buy a lovely three-bedroom house with a white picket fence and a two-car garage in most locales. In car-speak, the same money could buy thirty-five Toyota Yarises, four and a half Mercedes-Benz S550s, or every current BMW M car — a Z4 M, an M3, an M5, and an M6 — with enough money left over to employ a full-time mechanic for a year. It does 0-60 in 3.5 seconds on its way to a top speed over 200 mph. This isn't the type of car that you get in and expect to drive itself.

My sense of space and proportions has warped, because I can't see anything but an engine cover through the rear-view mirror. The yellow taxis tower around me like school buses. I fire up the 632-horsepower V12 and the noise is the same as what I'd imagine might come from a NASA-engineered, jet-powered vacuum. I regain my composure, check to make sure I haven't wet my jeans, and tune in to a traffic report. I need to get out of this Los Angeles traffic hell toot sweet.

Beyond just the paranoia ("Stop looking at me!"), an orange Lamborghini is a less than ideal vehicle for stop-and-go traffic. Any cold air coming from the four tiny dashboard vents is immediately sucked in by the massive motorized engine air intakes flanking the rear body, which also become trumpets of fan noise pointed right at my ears. The orange and black leather seats are great to look at, but have little more padding than Nicole Richie.

Highway 15 opens up after Victorville, California, where, as Thompson wrote in his famous opening line, "We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold." I bust off a few paddle-actuated downshifts at 80 mph, and the e-gear 6-speed automated transmission matches revs with F1-like acuity. Bwaaah. Fourth. Bwaaaaaah. Third. I just can't resist dropping down one more cog. BWAAAAAAH! Second gear is deafening at these speeds, but it carries the LP640 past 100 miles per hour before the time comes to calm the V12 with four quick flicks of my right hand. E-gear certainly isn't flawless, but it shines at higher speeds, making quick, smooth work of shifts up or down the ladder. The system allows gearchanges without letting up on the gas, but easing off irons the process out. Quick launches are e-gear's kryptonite, though. Use the brakes to help build revs with the car sitting still, and you'll end up with breathing a cloud of clutch smoke. A launch-control function would remedy this ill, but it isn't available in America.

That said, the automated transmission and the car's all-wheel-drive system play a huge role in making this animal more drivable than even cars like a Mazdaspeed3 or a Ford Mustang GT, both of which have less than half the horses. You can keep your foot down all day long, and the Lambo never flinches. What's the downside? The LP640 Roadster uses copious amounts of lightweight carbon fiber but still tips the scales at 3725 pounds. It's stable and thrilling on high-speed straights, but the heft makes the car tiring to throw around in tight curves. That discovery leads me, pilgrim-like, to the long, empty desert roads outside Baker, California.

Arriving in the small town famous for its "World's Tallest Thermometer," I recall that Thompson's literary alter ego, Raoul Duke, spent some time driving at superlegal speeds around Baker in Fear and Loathing. Little did I know our stories would soon intersect.

He writes of a high speed police pursuit: "When you're running along about a hundred or so and you suddenly find a red-flashing CHP-tracker on your trail — what you want to do is accelerate." Incidentally, I follow the same practice, speeding away from my stopped position along the shoulder of an empty desert road, unaware of the police cruiser pulling off the highway behind me as I wind the Lamborghini through its two lowest gears and into third. "Take him into the chute at no less than a hundred miles an hour. . .," Thompson continues, "and with any luck at all you will have come to a complete stop off the road at the top of the turn and be standing beside your automobile by the time he catches up." I round the only turn in sight on Kelbaker Road, then back off to answer the phone ringing in my pocket. It's our photographer, standing beside the road where I left him moments before. "Do not come back around that corner with your foot into the car." I hang up and decide to take Thompson's advice, pulling to the side of the two-lane where I sit, waiting. Sure enough, the Crown Victoria comes screeching to a halt beside me seconds later, the cop inside furious as I give him a look of feigned innocence. I know he has nothing on me.

"If you're gonna come out here and play in my county, you need to take it somewhere more remote," said the officer, glaring over the top of his Ray-Bans. "This isn't a race track, buddy." I nod and praise the Lord for cell phones.

I would run into the law one more time on the trip — a North Vegas officer breaking in his new BMW patrol bike — but that incident would be much more entertaining. I'm stopped along a road in the Valley of Fire when he pulls alongside me. "Hey," he asks while I try to decide what I've done wrong, "can you take a picture of me pulling you over?"

The sun is melting into the horizon as I fling the driver's door upward to get out for a stretch. The car's fiery orange paint is liquid and luminescent, almost supernatural in the dusk, and it strikes me exactly why people will buy this car: Few will ever tap the Lamborghini's full potential, but everyone understands its beauty.

It will take the eye of a real Lambo fan to spot the new LP640 model (LP for the longitudinale posteriore V12 engine configuration, 640 for the European horsepower rating) in a line-up of run-of-the-mill Murciés, though, as the cosmetic differences are few. The front lip edges lower to the ground, and the rear valence has been modified to wrap around a new center-exit exhaust that's open wider than the mouths of those who hear its ministrations. The wheels are new, too, but don't look the part, with their impressive-in-the-late-'90s diameter of eighteen inches. The car's 632 U.S. horsepower rating would have been unheard of in the last decade, however, and it's up from the old car's 580. That boost comes courtesy of an increase in engine displacement from 6.2 to 6.5 liters. Indeed, if the original Murciélago packs the potency of peyote, the LP would be the fabled "white button," a more resilient but now extinct strain of the cactus that grew in the mountains of Arizona and boasted significantly higher mescaline content.

The night is growing old by the time I reach Las Vegas, the terminus of my trip. A city in which a nude, Elvis-impersonating mime balancing a white tiger on a broomstick while swinging on a trapeze is an everyday occurrence, this is where the Lamborghini's look-at-me attitude will truly be tested. All day, I've faced extended gas and snack stops, taking the time to answer questions like, "Do those vents on the side make this thing fly?," "What do you do for a living, rob banks?," and "Where's the flux capacitor?" Between that and the wind and sun blasting into the car, I'm exhausted. Vegas is the one place where I might be able to slip in, undetected. I give the keys to the Bellagio valet and go to bed.

I wake the next morning in a haze, trying to piece together the events of the previous day. Was I really interrogated by police in two different states, plus a park ranger, all in one day? Is there really a bright orange Lamborghini waiting for me downstairs? A valet ticket sitting on the nightstand seems to confirm that fact. Thompson asked: "What was the meaning of this trip? Was I just roaming around in a drug frenzy of some kind? Or had I really come out here to Las Vegas to work on a story?" I take a cool shower to wash off the dirt, the road grime, and the few hours of sleep in my eyes. Could I own one? If I were Sultan-of-Dubai rich, certainly. I'd probably even have Lamborghini make me a one-off shooting-brake version with platinum body panels, glass wheels, and a full Gucci interior. But I'm not that big of an extrovert. Still, I can't resist letting out a big "Wooooo!" as I drop down to first gear on the Vegas strip, my right hand falling onto a pile of cards promoting the exotic dances of a girl named Bambi. Just another freak in the freak kingdom.