Mercedes, Lancer, Subaru WRX, Koenigsegg, Porsche, McLaren get perfect Jeremy Clarkson scores

What makes a perfect car? In the early 2000s, style helped but wasn’t essential. ‘Utterly stupid’ power was more attractive.

The 2002 Mercedes-Benz SL 55 AMG sounds like a rumbling baritone.

What makes a perfect car? In the early 2000s, style helped but wasn’t essential. Utterly stupid power was more attractive.

Here, as a reminder of those wonderful years, are six cars that earned five-star reviews from me between 2002 and 2004.

2002 Mercedes SL 55 AMG, 5439cc, V8:Because I am now in middle age I’ve swapped the Ferrari for a Mercedes-Benz. The SL AMG is used as a safety car at Formula One grands prix, and if you listen carefully when it’s out on the track you can actually hear it. A rumbling baritone backdrop to the tenor and soprano F1 motors. It is a staggering noise, a bellow, the sound of wanton consumption. Looks, as ever, figure just as high, but best of all, of course, is that roof. Push a button and 11 seconds later it’s in the boot. So what we have here is a 320km/h automatic coupe. A wind-in-the-hair paddle-shift convertible. A full-on, supercharged Tara Palmer Nascar that when you’re not in the mood becomes as quiet and as unobtrusive as Nell McAndrew. And there are so many gadgets the handbook is 539 pages long. Simon Schama got A History of Britain into less than that. I think it’s one of the world’s greatest cars. - September 15, 2002.

2003 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VIII and Subaru Impreza 2.0 WRX STI, 1994/1997cc, 4 cylinders, turbocharged: I know how good cars can be because occasionally I trip over one. Last week, though, was unique because I tripped over two, the Mitsubishi Evo VIII, below left, and the new Subaru Impreza STI, below right. They are both inexpensive four-door saloons, so you get all the practicality of a vacuum cleaner. And yet, with their trick four-wheel-drive systems and their turbocharged engines, they go with a fizz that’s pure rock’n’roll. On the sort of twisting ribbon of tarmac that you dream about in the wee small hours there is no road car made today, no low-slung, knuckle-dragging Ferrari, Lamborghini or Porsche, that could even get close. It’s not the power, although the Impreza’s 0-100km/h in 4.6 seconds is obviously pretty intoxicating, and it certainly isn’t the style, because neither car has any at all. It’s the handling and the grip, the sense that you can take any corner at pretty well any speed that takes your fancy. And it’s the feel that comes back at you through the seat and the wheel as the car fights to stay out of the nearest sheep. If I may be permitted to liken cars to people, most spend their days cleaning the bath, going to work and sewing name tags on children’s clothes. The Evo and the Impreza get all that stuff out of the way then spend the rest of the time having wild, mad, passionate and, it must be said, often illegal sex. - March 30, 2003.

2003 Koenigsegg CC, 4723cc, V8, supercharged: Mr Koenigsegg is a completely bald inventor from Sweden who decided one day to make a supercar. Ferrari and Lamborghini should be afraid. Very afraid. Sweden’s odd like that. Only 172 people live there but when they turn their attention to something, the world tends to notice. The Koenigsegg almost the same weight as a McLaren F1, it is a little bit more aerodynamically efficient and with 488kW in the boot it’s a little bit more powerful. The result is, quite simply, the fastest road car in the world. They’re talking about a top speed of 386km/h. It’s an absolute beast, as hot as the centre of the earth and as noisy as a foundry. It’s like working out on the footplate of a steam train but the rewards are huge. Pile up to a corner, change down on the ridiculously narrow-gated gearbox, brake hard. Already your clutch leg is aching from the effort. Now turn the wheel. There’s power assistance, but not much. Your arms are straining to hold the front in line, so you apply some power to unstick the back end. Grrrrr, goes the 4.7-litre V8. Weeeeeeeeee goes the supercharger. And eeeeeeeee go the tyres as they lose traction. Smoke is pouring off the tyres now, but the car is powering sideways and under perfect control. Welcome then to the world of the superfast supercar. They are utterly stupid, of course. Just like the people who drive them. Us. - July 6, 2003.

2003 Porsche Carrera GT, 5733cc, V10: The most refined, most planed-away, most astonishing engine I have ever encountered is currently to be found sitting in the middle of Porsche’s new Carrera GT. Strangely, though, it’s not the engine that impresses most of all about the Carrera GT. It’s the weight. Unlike any other road car ever made, all of it — the body, the tub, even the support struts for that monster V10 — are made from stuff that sure as hell wasn’t in the periodic table last time I looked. The result is simple. Mix an anorexic body with a heart made of pure fire and you are going to go with a savagery that’s hard to explain. Nothing prepared me for the neck-snapping, spleen-bursting, hammer-blow explosion of power that came the first time I floored the Carrera’s throttle. Now, we have seen this kind of blood-and-guts stuff before, from Ferrari and McLaren and even some of the new boys such as Pagani and Koenigsegg. But the Porsche feels different. It feels finished. I had a long discussion recently with a friend about the difference between art and design. And, without wishing to sound like Alan Yentob, the Carrera seems to sit at a point where the two disciplines meet. It looks like the result of a liaison between Henry Moore and Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Engineering at its artsy-fartsy best. - October 12, 2003.

2004 Mercedes SLR McLaren, 5439cc, V8, supercharged: When McLaren was designing the SLR it went to the nth degree to make it as powerful and as light as possible. And then along came Mercedes, which insisted it should be useable every day. So, to the McLaren engineers’ intense annoyance, on went all sorts of stuff such as carpet in the boot and electronic safety devices. It even has an automatic gearbox. My spies tell me the two parties had a serious falling out. Apparently they couldn’t even agree on what the finished product sounded like. The boys from McLaren said it made the same noise as a Spitfire, while the Mercedes technicians were adamant it was like a Messerschmitt. As an everyday car the big, comfy, well-equipped Mercedes is unbeatable. - September 12, 2004.