That’s automotive artistry.An art deco extravagance of an automobile, the body and wings a streamlined sheath around engine, occupants and wheels. Dramatic and curvily purposeful, it must have looked extraordinary among British saloons of the 1950s.Criticise the throwback looks if you like, but the 1961 A110 Berlinetta that is the new Alpine’s inspiration directly rivalled today’s retro Porsche 911, too. An exciting shout of power.Updating a classic is not always completely successful – the 996-generation 911’s fried-egg headlights are a case in point – but some generations of 911 absolutely gel.

Few examples of it were made, but it could have evolved beautifully.One of the best-looking race cars ever, especially in Gulf Oil colours. It was initially fitted with a side-valve, 7,036cc straight-six with the cylinders cast as two three-cylinder units, and a choice of coil and magneto ignition systems.The W198/109 S-class was launched at the Frankfurt motor show in 1965 with elegant Paul Bracq bodywork and a couple of six-cylinder engine options. Its yowling 562bhp/398lb ft V8 is terrific although the only transmission option, a seven-speed dual-clutch Getrag unit, is heavy and occasionally crude.British designer Fergus Pollock came up with the idea when he worked for Chrysler UK.

Here are 15 all-time classics, listed as a gift for your car enthusiastic soul. Uli Bez, Aston’s chief executive, postponed the launch as he considered the car wasn’t ready and, even when it was, the launch cars burned through clutches as their robotised transmission wasn’t quite as robust as it could have been.The only three-wheeler in the list, but what a three-wheeler. Too many modern BMWs suffer troubling proportions and blandness. By PPN Editor February 27, 2012. The ’59 Eldorado was a triumph of style over function recalling rockets, missiles, fighter aircraft and certain parts of the anatomy.Based on the phenomenal 99 Turbo but redesigned with a longer, crash-friendly nose, the 900 Turbo was produced in a variety of models. When Motor magazine tested it in £6,995 trim in 1973, they thought it was “as near as dammit, perfection”.“Where’s my Bentley?” asks Commander Bond in Goldfinger (1964).
This two-seater was the best all-rounder of the 1930s and it’s where BMW learned to win races through pluck and engineering, along with the appliance of technology and modern designs and materials, all wrapped in a terrific-looking body.The GT40, modelled on Eric Broadley’s Lola GT racer, was built within the chocolatey whiff of the Mars factory on the Slough Trading Estate by Lola craftsmen and was ordered by Henry Ford II in a fit of pique after he was thwarted in his plans to buy Ferrari for $10 million – also as a result of him rescinding the US car manufacturers’ agreement not to go motor racing.Conceived by Gordon Murray and designed by Peter Stevens, the F1 was designed to show off McLaren’s Formula One racing experience in a road car.


Based on the Le Mans-winning D-Type, but with a monocoque body instead of a racing tub and using complex subframes front and rear, the E-Type in its initial form was mired in controversy.Jörg Bensinger, an Audi chassis engineer, had seen how the VW Iltis military vehicle could outperform everything else in the snow.

Tom Karen of Ogle submitted sketches and Reliant liked the subsequent mocked-up bodies, engineering a longer chassis to go underneath.While the extraordinary pre-Second World War V16-engined cars merit a mention, it is the amazing fins of this fourth-generation 1959 Caddy that are most representative of the excess and sex appeal of the Fifties Cadillacs celebrated in Bruce Springsteen’s Pink Cadillac or Chuck Berry’s Maybellene. Accessible glamour on basic mechanicals, combined with plenty of glitz and the winning proportions of a thoroughbred.The Countach’s successor grew long in the tail, mostly to accommodate the exhaust’s catalysts. And there’s beauty in those voluptuous front wings, the lines romping from windscreen to rear lights and that power-packed tail.Still Ferrari’s most handsome midengined car, its proportions more perfect than the 308’s, its subtle suggestions of potency just eclipsing the 246 Dino. A stunning design by Italy’s Touring.Subsequent Audi TTs, handsome though they are, and the Peugeot RCZ, prove that this singular original was the best, with its unadulterated proportions and simpler surfaces.Still the most elegant post-war Mercedes, its quiet elegance long forgotten amid the bombast of your modern Merc. The 599 GTB Fiorano managed brilliantly with its flying buttress rear pillars, and this short-booted, long-bonneted coupé was neatly sharpened when it became the 599 GTO.MATT SAUNDERS: Has there been a better-looking supercar since? They’re eye-candy adventures in themselves and they cast shadows that are better-looking than most of the stuff humanity has churned out over the eons. Suicide rear doors and the pillarless look added classy surprise.40: 2007 Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione - NEW ENTRY.MATT PRIOR: You know how it goes with concept cars: they all look terrific, and yet the resulting production versions look nothing like them.

But 212mph would do me if it looked like this.This is the raffishly aristocratic opentop sports car of the mind’s eye made real. A road-legal Le Mans winner, this is Henry Ford II’s magnificent revenge on Enzo Ferrari.It came from Paris rather than outer space, but you could have fooled motor show-goers in 1955.