This article is from 2007 but I don't think it was ever posted here...

The Nissan Skyline has just filled its belly with super-unleaded and bursts back onto the A1(M), its barrel-chested straight-six gulping in cold, dense November air. Today is a good day. I’ve got a soft spot for Japan’s craziest coupe and the slog up to Yorkshire seems somehow less monotonous when you’ve got a g-meter to keep you company. But it’s not just the R34 GT-R that’s lightening my mood, because every time I glance in the rear- view mirror, picked out by the low winter sun are two shapes that send a shock-wave of anticipation down my spine.

Both are dwarfed by much of the traffic around them, but in stature they’re giants. Close behind the Skyline’s sooty exhausts there’s a Porsche 911 2.7 RS. The RS is 911 in its purest form, devoid of everything that gets in the way of the driving experience and enhanced in all the areas that count. If evo had been around in 1973 this would have been our Car of the Year, by a landslide. Tucked-up behind the Porsche’s pert ducktail spoiler is a McLaren F1. No superlatives required; there probably aren’t any big enough anyway.

The harsh yellow light seems to give the tiny, backlit 911 and amazingly compact F1 a blurred halo, and the grey A1(M) has taken on the look of the yellow brick road. Only this time there are no uncertainties about what lies at its end: Honda NSX-R and Integra Type-R, Lancia Delta Integrale Evo 2, the latest 911 GT3, Pagani Zonda C12S, Ferrari F40 and Bugatti Veyron. Your Perfect Ten, selected for our 100th issue celebration, and I’d just like to take the opportunity to congratulate you on a discerning, varied and awe-inspiring collection.

Anyway, back to the GT-R, which feels stiff, bristling with aggression and fascinated by any ripple in the tarmac. The ride smoothes out the faster you go, but I don’t mind the odd reminder that this is a car designed to work best at one speed: maximum attack. Besides, a bit of tramlining is a small price to pay for such rich feedback. Even on the most boring of journeys the big Nissan feels unique. If this is a taste of what’s to come when we reach the rolling moorland roads then the next couple of days promise to be quite a birthday bash.

 

A decade ago it redefined the word supercar. There's still no other car like it.



Question: which car has the better power-to-weight ratio: the Bugatti Veyron or the McLaren F1? Answer: the car with the carbon monocoque that was designed to take it into account.

The F1 might no longer be the fastest supercar ever made but it clearly remains the car that does the most with its power. The Bugatti’s 521bhp/ton is impressive but the McLaren’s 559bhp/ton is more telling, especially when you consider that the Veyron has 1000bhp at its disposal and the Macca a ‘mere’ 627bhp. So, even though the Bug has twice the torque of the Mac (479 plays 922lb ft), it’s just 12mph faster flat out and 0.8sec quicker to 100mph. Let’s look at it another way. Each of the Bugatti’s bhp delivers 0.25mph and each of the McLaren’s 0.38mph.

But then the F1’s prodigious performance was a consequence of its sublime design and engineering and not the starting point. And that’s why the F1 still delivers such a pure and exhilarating driving experience that reaches far beyond the initial hit of its fabulous acceleration. The central driving position requires effort and a certain gymnastic dexterity to access but that’s only right. This isn’t (or at least shouldn’t be) a car you leap into, fire up and fling the taps wide open. You savour the moments. All of them.

 

Ferrari's riposte to the Porsche 959 stands the test of time, and is the only Maranello product in the top 10.



Is the F40 the greatest road- going Ferrari of them all? Arguably, it’s the most exciting, focused and rewarding. It’s also the most fabulously functional, shorn of everything that doesn’t add to its speed or dynamic acuity. It gives the notion that ‘less is more’ new impetus. But that’s what makes it so enduringly desirable. The lean provisions, the absence of veneer, the hardcore conviction of it all.

Ferrari threw together the F40 in 12 months. Officially, it was to commemorate its 40th birthday, but everyone knew it was really revenge for Porsche’s audacious act of one-upmanship in making the 959. Ferrari’s counter punch could have been shoddy and unresolved – all power and no purpose. But the (comparative) speed and passion with which it was created and constructed worked powerfully to the F40’s advantage.

Powered by a twin-turbo 2.9-litre V8 developing 478bhp, the 1100kg F40 can just about crack 200mph but, with the supercar high end now defined by the Veyron, its acceleration stats no longer seem so special. It doesn’t matter; the F40’s manic delivery makes it fast in a way even drivers of a modern supercar hero such as the Murciélago won’t understand. Supercar motoring comes no more intense than this.

 

Now safely entrenched in the supercar firmament, this relative newcomer is so good, the man who started evo bought one...



The vision of a slight, bespectacled, quietly spoken Argentinean called Horacio Pagani, the Zonda is a labour of love. Pagani spent more than 25,000 hours in the conceptual phase, exploring the style, the carbonfibre chassis, the suspension – all are his clean-sheet creations.

The same originality and attention to detail suffuses the interior. The dash, made from an aluminium casting, is linked to the steering column, which can be adjusted both for reach and height. The circular brake and clutch pedals can also be adjusted to tailor the driving position even more precisely. Designed by Modena Design and made from carbonfibre, the seats have generous fore-aft travel and can be adjusted for height, too.

The Zonda, you see, isn’t a substitute Ferrari or Lamborghini. The usual shapes and sensations have been shown the door. This is a stockier, shockier, more heavily muscled supercar that looks tough enough to chew on a Ferrari 430 between meals and not spoil its appetite. Even if you strip away the exotic curves and the aura of awe that envelops the Zonda wherever it goes, just the sight of the 7.3-litre V12, built by Mercedes’ AMG go-faster department, sitting in the cradle of the steel spaceframe is enough to make grown men weep.

 

The early 90s legend, destroyer of both Audi's rally dominance and Porsche's on-road air of superiority



This is the car that buried the Audi Quattro, both in the World Rally Championship and on the road. Of all the hormonally-engineered mainstream metal lumped under the ‘affordable supercar’ heading, the Lancia was the most super of its generation.

Usual Modenese suspects apart, there aren’t many Italian cars that command more respect than the holy ’Grale. But the lumpy little Lancia was a hero to thousands, a genuine slayer of giants. Imagine it, a car that cost the same as a junior executive saloon that would run down a Porsche 911 on a demanding road.

Even by modern standards, it doesn’t seem to matter how extreme you get with a ’Grale Evo, how ludicrous the liberties you take on the edge of adhesion, it always seems to have a few tricks in reserve that will pull you through. Driving one is an education. Accelerate hard on the turn and it finds acceleration where lesser cars find wheelspin or a close encounter with the hedge on the other side of the road. There may be faster cars in a straight line, ones that can pull more lateral g on smooth, dry tarmac. But very few dispatch real roads and uncertain conditions with such confidence. The harder you drive the Lancia, the better it gets.

 

blue F1...

 

Not really a car in the sense of anything else here. Better described as a brief taste of omnipotence



To understand the Veyron you have to experience it. Like some frighteningly abstract cosmological concept, you struggle to get a handle on its capabilities, trying to imagine what accelerating to 100mph in 5.5 seconds or travelling at 250mph might actually feel like.

But here’s a clue for anyone who’s ever felt the sledgehammer thump of Mercedes’ 500bhp SL55 AMG. The Veyron weighs about the same but is twice as powerful. It has almost twice the torque, too. And it feels roughly twice as fast. That’s twice as fast as the fastest car you’d ever need. A Veyron will dust an Enzo without trying.

Then again, there is a whiff of the absurd about the Veyron. It has as many turbochargers as it has driven wheels (four apiece), two clutches, a seven-speed gearbox and 1000bhp. It gets to 60mph in the time it takes its driver to gulp. It’s about as sensible as a body-builder’s 21-inch neck. Veyron drivers who flex their right ankles too enthusiastically may well end up with the same.

But my guess is no Veyron will ever be driven at 250mph by its owner. What matters is the psychology of wielding such colossal potential. The Veyron’s top speed is so high, no one needs to go there. The advantage is all in the mind. And that’s probably the greatest power of all.

 

Still widely regarded as Japan's finest automotive hour, and the first supercar you really could use as a runabout



A road-going racer designed to kick Skyline and Supra butt in Japan’s JGTC race series, the NSX-R never officially made it to the UK, which was a tragedy. Lighter, harder, faster and hornier than the standard item, it would have been the perfect repost to the 911 GT3 and Ferrari 360 CS. We’ll certainly never forget our time behind the wheel.

According to Honda, the quicker (4.4sec) 0-60 time was purely due to weight savings and slightly shorter gearing which, incidentally, knocked the top speed down to 168mph. The 3179cc V6 was rated at an identical 276bhp. Our guess was a bit more. The motor was balanced and blueprinted after all. Certainly, the sharper throttle response and more ‘urgent’ feel suggested more gee-gees than Honda would admit to.

The NSX-R got the job done like no other sub-300bhp supercar on earth. Traction off the line was stunning, the short, rifle-bolt action of the six-speed ’box so fast and accurate you could dazzle yourself with your own hand speed. And jeez, what a noise: a howl so hard-edged it could chisel granite. The steering was alive with feel, just the right amount of weight and damping smoothing off the rough edges. The confidence it gave was astonishing. Much like the car itself…

 

The ultimate, hard-edge Porsche. The GT3 continues to find your limits before you find its



All hunkered-down traction, nuggety bump management and lightning responses, the 997 GT3 attacks roads that would cripple the conviction of lesser cars, digging hard into bends, nose bobbing subtly as stiff suspension and stubby profile tyres overwhelm the tail-biased masses to pile on speed through sheer tenacity and talent.

Of course, the GT3 is shockingly fast. That’s its day job, after all. The weight-paring measures of Porsche’s Motorsport Department have delivered a formidable power-to-weight ratio of 298bhp-per-ton. The car will top 190mph and hit sixty in four seconds. And yet, thanks to the wonders of PASM, nestling beside this weapon-like fitness for purpose is a pliant, civilized character that broadens the GT3’s appeal to that of comfortable, mile-munching GT at the flick of a switch.

But then Porsche knows the middle ground between road car and racer perhaps better than any other car maker. It’s hard to think of another road car that nails the sweet spot between raw-edged trackday tool and everyday usability with the precision of the new GT3. Just the right number of comfort layers have been peeled away to reveal the harder, sharper 911 beneath.

Another year, another GT3. And they just keep on getting better.

 

34 years old, small and low-powered by today's standards, but still delivers the quintessential 911 experience



The defining 911 of its era, the Carrera 2.7 RS was created as an homologation special. All 500 examples of the initial batch were sold within a week of the car’s international debut at the 1972 Paris Show. As a design, it was an object lesson in economy of purpose. With its appropriately fat tyres and duck-tail spoiler, it made later models look fussy and clumsy. It was the first 911 to bear the RS moniker and, for many, it continues to encapsulate and project the 911 experience more cogently than any other.

Lean and hard, with no hint of the excess that blunted the edge of some subsequent models, its 2.7-litre flat six developed a solid 210bhp: enough to propel that lightweight body (under 1000kg) to 60mph in comfortably under 6 seconds.

The car still makes most modern 911s feel aloof. Drive a 2.7 RS and the nerve endings in your fingertips tingle with small but critical details. The surface of the road is etched out in digital-sharp resolution, uncorrupted by compromise damping effects. It jiggles, it kicks, it writhes – bristling with feedback. There’s so much pure feel, it’s still difficult to think of any other car that’s as satisfying to drive hard. Or, indeed, another engine that takes such complete control of the small hairs on the back of your neck.