So the cat’s out of the bag.
The Lotus Evora is our Best Driver’s Car of 2009. What a deserved winner it is too. And a surprisingly good value one. If you average out the asking prices of all eleven new cars in this year’s test, you arrive at a notional cost of a new fast car in Britain, in 2009, of just over £82k. Which looks like quite a lot of wonga for an entertaining drive in the current climate – and makes the Evora look like a bit of snip at £49,875.
I think I can speak for the majority of Autocar readers when I say that, given the chance, we’d happily spend as little as we can get away with on a fine-handling sports car. That’s why we followed up this year’s handling day test with a secondhand equivalent.
All four cars that we pitted against each other were previous winners of our good handling gong: Lamborghini’s Murcielago, Lotus’ S2 Elise, Noble’s M400 and Porsche’s Cayman S. And, with the exception of the Noble, all of them can now be bought for around half of what they cost new.
So what’s the only thing better than a great-handling new car? Try a great-handling used one.
And which was our champion of champions? Well, all I’ll say is that it was small, light, green and extremely fun to drive - as you’ll read on page 60 of this week’s magazine. And if I had £14k to spend on something fun, it would no longer be the property of Paul Matty Sports Car Ltd of Bromsgrove.
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Lotus Elise,
Noble M400,
Lamborghini’s Murcielago,
Porsche’s Cayman S,
Lotus Evora
