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"Th-th-th-that that don't kill me can only make me stronger." Kanye West's new anthem is blasting in our Mercedes CL63 AMG as we chase a Lotus Esprit on Britain's M20, the highway from London to the Channel, and suddenly Kanye's lyrics resonate. Somehow I have landed behind the wheel of a $140,000, 518-horsepower vehicle for a breakneck three-day scramble across Europe, despite the fact that I have never driven: a) on the left side of the road, b) with the steering wheel on the right side of the car, and c) anywhere near the teeth-grinding 120 miles per hour I'm now averaging. Speed limits be damned! We rip past Vanagons and subcompacts to keep up with the Lotus—and the rest of the convoy—and Paris is visible by nightfall.

Behold the de Grisogono & Londino Transnational Automobile Tour, an invitation-only, scenic-route rally from London to Portofino that has lured about 30 of the world's most pious moto-worshippers, including Alexander Roy and Michael Ross, veterans of the harder-core Gumball 3000 rally, in a BMW Z8. Charted by Swedish entrepreneurs Anders Bernunger, Jens Trulsson, and Trulsson's younger brother, Erik, Londino is officially a scavenger hunt—the rules ask for photos of designated landmarks (the Arc de Triomphe; a crescent statue in the harbor of Ouchy, Switzerland)—but the drivers are also scrutinizing who can burn whom on the open road. "It started out as a thing for people with a passion for cars, and now it's what we live and breathe," says Jens. The decidedly non-carbon-neutral procession is like a Model U.N., with each team living up to the reputation of its motherland: The Swedish girls in the Audi S5 are bouncy, free-spirited, and uncatchable; the Brits are white-haired and genteel, with watchful wives in tow; the Swiss adhere to no rules or speed limits; and the obnoxious American (me) instinctively substitutes hubris for skill.

I agreed to this thinking that I'd be a passenger, but when my original teammate—the cousin of Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden—bailed at the last moment, I was promoted to driver of the Neonode-sponsored entry. The organizers gave me two hours to recruit a copilot at the kickoff party, and I went for it: a toothsome Brit in pearls and a white dress named Tatina de Marinis. Even after she agreed to my dubious pitch ("You, me, Paree"), I thought she might disappear right up to the moment when her seat belt clicked. Apparently she couldn't turn down a Mercedes with seats that literally tilt to cradle us when I accelerate around a turn on the M20, as if they're some kind of Sharper Image shiatsu chairs with ESP. Behind her vintage Persols—the kind Steve McQueen wore in The Thomas Crown Affair—de Marinis, an aspiring actress, is running through lines for a film audition in a fake French accent ("Ever-ee-won has a zecret!"), but our GPS won't stop yapping. "She's like a first wife," says de Marinis, "always calling the house and popping up when you don't want her."