TOP 100

Here, then, are our five finalists, each of them a car of the first order. Richard Lane makes the difficult decision and declares a winner

PHOTOGR APHY JACK HARRISON

Into the top five we boldly go. And what’s this – not a midengined creation to be seen? Surely some mistake. But no, not at all. Truth be told, the absence of supercars from the final quintet shouldn’t come as a colossal surprise given the criteria to which we’re working. If this contest was mostly concerned with undiluted excitement and raw synaptic delight, then the following pages would of course be drenched in high-octane products from McLaren, Ariel, Ferrari et al. But we’re looking at an altogether rounder picture here. Every car over the next few pages has both a deep-seated ‘rightness’ and a conceptual purity, plus decent usability, meaning they’re enjoyable more of the time. They are, to us, simply ‘super’ cars.

This explains why, first thing in the morning, there’s a Dacia Jogger bumbling its way to our West Country base of operations for the day. As it happens, the French-Romanian bargainbasement seven-seater arrives moments after another finalist – a Porsche 911, in off-dutyracing-car white. If you knew no better, you would assume the 911 was the star of the shoot and the blocky 109bhp estate was the support mule, chock-full of photography equipment. Yet both are here on merit and for similar reasons: they are totally charming and do their Specific Thing to near-perfection. Anyone on the Autocar payroll would happily own either of these cars, given the chance, although this remains true of all the five finalists.

Don’t be fooled: the Dacia has earned its place here

In its starkest form, the Jogger costs a little over £18,000. You might not want it in such a basic guise as that, but the fact that an ingeniously versatile family car exists at this price at all deserves celebrating. Our car has three pedals, a three-figure cubic capacity and a torsion beam axle at the back; we won’t pretend it doesn’t feel a touch rudimentary on the move. ‘Performance’ is not in the Jogger vernacular, either, while the driving position is faintly agricultural. Yet everyone who drives the Dacia loves it, and not in an ironic way. There is a joy in the unpretentious simplicity of cars such as this, especially when they don’t mind being hustled through corners. The Jogger is dependable, likeable and strangely handsome, don’t you think? No, it was never going to win this contest outright, but a place on the podium? That, we can now reveal, is in the bag for this stellar car that has undertones of 1970s French utili-cool.