The very purest kind of modern sports car

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And no car here quite fits that brief like the original S1 Elise.

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Ninja levels of dexterity are useful when it comes to slotting yourself between the high, wide sill and roof, normally a roll-up canvas affair that looks like a tool roll, but in this case, a removable hardtop. Forget thoughts of seat, wheel and pedals being in anything other than approximate alignment, and even the luxury of carpets in most cases, the Elise experience is very much sports car defining, and all the better for it.

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LOTUS ELISE S1 RACE CAR

The original Elise came with a bone-stock MG Rover K-series engine developing just 118bhp, which felt more like 200bhp when you factored in the scarcely believable 725kg kerbweight.

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Our Elise is a Race Car! A track-focused, race winning version featuring uprated suspension and cammy 160bhp motor that idles like a racer.

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If you’ve never driven an Elise before, for those first few hundred yards your senses are as overloaded.

The steering wheel, writhes away in your hands, weighting up markedly in corners, allowing you to feel everything. It’s a landmark automotive experience.

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The wheel isn’t the only unservoed control either: the brakes, as with those on all K-series-engined cars, are boost-free too, requiring a very unfashionable race-car shove that makes them brilliantly easy to modulate, but requires a proper old-fashioned heel-and-toe action for downchanges: a lazy roll of the foot won’t cut it here.

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Any concerns that ‘only’ 160bhp will leave you wanting more are quickly banished as the little engine comes on cam and shrieks towards the limiter.

The Nissan GTR - The fastest car down an unknown road.

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The R35 Nissan GT-R is Nissan’s finest hour, and almost makes up for the atrocious Micra. A four-seater two-door with a decent boot and four-wheel drive that’s mightily rear-biased. Bolt that to a suite of electronic cleverness that’ll boggle whatever’s left of your mind, and you’ve got a legend that reliably minces cars twice the price.

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Get ready to brace yourself though!

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The engine is a 3.8-litre V6, putting out a staggering 550bhp and 466lb ft of torque. Capable of 193mph and   0–62mph acceleration times below three seconds, run after run. That’s not a car, that’s a missile. Its our missile, available to you to launch for some laps…..

NISSAN GTR

Launched in 2007, the V8 Vantage was designed to take on the might of the Porsche 911. The V8 Vantage is thrilling to drive and oozes desireability - and that noise…….

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Power comes from a 420bhp 4.7-litre V8 which sounds sensational with the windows rolled down, seven-speed automatic.

Our choice: Aston Martin V8 Vantage .

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With 420bhp from its V8 it can cover 0-62mph in 4.8 seconds and hit a top-speed of 180mph. The steering is heavy but has plenty of feedback, while the suspension is firm but controls the body brilliantly.

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Have your own 007 moment in our Aston – its epic.

ASTON MARTIN V8 VANTAGE