Programming Training: ASP.NET 3.5 Fundamentals

Programming Training: ASP.NET 3.5 Fundamentals
WMV | 1,1 GB

1.ASP.NET Architecture
2.Control-based Programming
3.HTTP Pipeline

4.User Interface Elements
5.State Management
6.Configuration
7.Deployment
8.Validation
9.Data Binding I
10.Data Binding II
11.Custom Controls
12.Caching
13.ASP.NET Security
14.ASP.NET Membership
15.Webparts
16.ASP.NET Diagnostics and Health Monitoring
17.Resources and Internationalization
18.Asynchrony
19.Miscellaneaous

LINK 1
LINK 2
LINK 3
LINK 4
LINK 5

Top 100 Fastest cars

Top gear have compiled a list of the 100 fastest cars....
If you've ever snoozed at 35,000ft before finding God in the back of an airport taxi, you'll understand that speed is relative. No 0-60mph here, nor 0-100-0mph, but just the cars that remind us, in the terrifying thick of it, that we are utterly alive.


Lotus 2-Eleven: In a shed in deepest, darkest Norfolk, something very potent is being brewed...

If you've ever got drunk on the heady Lotus product, the potency of the 2-Eleven will be very easy to imagine. As much as we try to deny it, the modern Lotus is governed by one simple equation: a total absence of compromise in the search for speed. This means almost no comfort, practicality or refinement. The Elise is a second car at best, the Exige a third car at a push. So the search leads inexorably to the 2-Eleven, a track-day car that can just about be made road-legal. No air-conditioning and CD players here. Let alone roofs, doors or windscreens.

Weighing a paltry 745kg (just 40kg of that being bodywork) and with 252bhp available from that supercharged 1.8-litre Toyota-sourced engine, the 60mph benchmark comes up in 3.8 seconds and 100mph is done in 9.1. Top speed is 155mph, and will cost from £39,995, with production 'scheduled to commence' sometime around now. Various specs are available from the 'Launch Edition', complete with 'three-way' colour scheme and a decal pack.

'Road Going' with front and rear lights, an exhaust catalyst and a variety of other mods to get it past Plod and the DVLA. The alternative is the 'Track Only' car, with brake lights and rear indicators only, a race seat and high-downforce carbon-fibre rear wing and front splitter. That's the purer hit of hooch, if you're mad enough to swig from either bottle.

Atom Supercharged:

Scaffolding pole meets blown Honda VTEC. The shortest route to track-day terror is via Ariel's superbly tidy and simple design.

Caterham R500:

The end-game for Chapman's Seven. 500bhp per tonne brings the past right up to Ariel's future.

Megane F1:

Unforgiving for daily use, the F1 Edition Megane remains the ulimate hot hatch here.

BMW M3 CSL:

Super-scarce and brutally focused, the CSL remains a triumph of low-volume nutterdom. If only the new M3 looked this good.

LCC Rocket:

Gordon Murray's pricey pet project remains a masterclass in design and finish. He still takes his to France every year.

Radical SR8:

The Nurburgring lap record resides with the SR8 - the closest you can get to running a road-legal race car.

McLaren F1 LM:

Murray again, and this time a true Le Mans legend. Homologation specials can only look on in bewilderment.

Westfield XI:

Fast is relative. A gentle squirt can feel like a chicane-free Mulsanne straight in the XI. Goggles on.

VW Golf MkII:

It's local knowledge that makes this the second fastest car around the 'Ring. Stripped, caged, lowered, untouchable.

Maserati MC12:

Maser's cynical GT racing project is a road car in name only. The Corsa club racer being the one worth having.

Aston MartinV8 Vantage Roadster

Yes, the M6 or SL55 AMG may boast more power but the AM V8 Vantage Roadster makes all the right noises. Few cars at least sound faster than this one.

Propulsion comes from the exact same all-alloy, 4.3-litre V8 as the Vantage coupe, with variable-inlet camshaft timing, a dry sump to drop the centre of gravity and a horsepower tally that would leave this car trailing behind in a pissing contest against the likes of the 507bhp BMW M6 and the 517bhp Mercedes SL55 AMG, not to mention the 612bhp SL65 AMG.

Zero to 60 in 4.9 seconds and a maximum of 175mph, as anyone maintaining the faintest grip on reality would agree, is quick enough for now.

So what has gone so right here? Bounce from drain cover to expansion joint, and no shimmies are sent through the door tops or windscreen surround, no shock waves quaking up through the dashboard.

The Vantage's Bond Street bodywork hides a glued and riveted aluminium chassis that lends itself well to the conversion from coupe to Roadster, with added strengthening webs added inside the sills. The result makes the Roadster impressively rigid for an open car. The huge 355mm front and 330mm rear grooved brake discs, with four-piston calipers, really should provide nothing but reassurance.

Have no doubt, for all its slight 70kg weight gain and extra craving for attention, the Vantage is an even more focused sports car in Roadster form than ever - more a way-upmarket Corvette in feel and intention than a GT of any sort.

Opel GT:

The GT looks quite the classic roadster, made modern with a strong stance and clean-cut edges. The outside panels roll over into a sharp, well-tailored dash design. The interior materials and finish are pretty good - probably better than an MX-5, which shows how far GM has come since the days when all its American interiors were made of throwaway plastics, held together with spittle and hope.

Up front is a four-cylinder, 2.0-litre turbo engine kicking out a very spicy 260bhp and 260lb ft, thanks to a twin-scroll turbo, direct petrol injection and twin variable cam-phasing. It has two balancer shafts too. It's hooked up to a five-speed manual - no need for six when the torque is spread this widely. A limited-slip diff takes care of traction, and suspension is by double wishbones.

Most of the body's strength comes from separate steel side structures plus cross-members - a bit like a Corvette understructure. You can feel the rigidity when you drive it: the body hardly quivers, even over the lowest-budget American roads.

Trouble is, all these beams and girders swallow up so much of the car, there's hardly any room left for you, and none at all for your stuff. But hang on, roadsters are meant to be about fun, not cargo capacity. The big tyres keep a claw-like grip, so you can travel at true sports-car speeds. It's a swift, smooth cruiser, rather than a hectic roadburner.

Honda NSX-R: Purer than the driven snow. And a bit whiter too.

Probing the bods at Honda has revealed that the number of NSX-Rs in the UK has reached the grand total of one. And that was bought at a hefty premium off their press department.

Pared down, stiffened up and sharpened to the absolute limit of road-going acceptability, the NSX-R is a supercar with added focus, purified to the point of perfection. And the limited few were only ever finished in white.

Lamborghini Countach: The shape that sexualised motoring for a generation of hormonal adolescents

Mitsubishi Evo VI Makinen: Last of the proper WRC-winning Evos

Tommi won his fourth consecutive World Rally Championship in an Evo VI and this limited edition celebrated the victory. It was the last of the group A homologated Lancers - and the best. From the VII on, Mitsu's WRC performance fell away, the Yanks discovered it and everything got even tackier.

Mercedes CL63 AMG: A clipped Lear Jet of sorts. Thirstier though

There are different kinds of fast and we're picking over them all here. There's breathless supercar acceleration, there's Evo-style, cross-country pace. But the environment that Merc has always owned, and nowhere more convincingly than with the CL63 AMG, is unending, unfaltering speed.

With a 525bhp V8 upfront on an S-Class chassis, this is the only coupe to cross continents in. In a hushed whisper you sit at obscene speeds as mile after mile of derestricted autobahn disappears beneath you. And you emerge as fresh as the moment when you turned the key.

AC Cobra MkII 289

The history of Carroll Shelby shoe-horning big Yank V8s into the little AC Ace is well-documented, but the moment when it all truly came together - beautiful looks and manageable muscle - was with the MkII 289. Only 528 were ever made and you'll need to find over £200,000 to take one home today.

Toyota Supra Turbo

Three-litre straight-six twin-turbo nutter drift car tuned to 1,000bhp by loonies, but it's still great with 'only' the standard 320bhp.

BMW M6: History the Germans can actually be proud of

Far removed from the fundamentals of driving as it is, a new V10 paddle-shift M6 pales beside the original 'E24'. Fitted with a modified version of the straight-six from the M1 supercar, it was devastatingly quick throughout its production. Tough, agile, practical and understated, few cars made more sense then, and fewer do now.

Aston Martin V8 Vantage: British bulldog, with bite to match its bark

Aston's current resurgence, as impressive and commercially successful as it may be, will never quite touch the bygone coachbuilt era that spawned the original V8 Vantage. Hailed as Britain's first supercar, the Vantage was a 5.3-litre ogre with a 170mph top speed reached through an agricultural, dog-legged, ZF gearbox.

But despite brutal underpinnings, the interior was hand-finished to an extraordinary standard, with plush Connolly leather and high-gloss wood trim everywhere. Built from 1977 until 1989, the Vantage attained classic status in its own lifetime.

Jaguar XK140: Performance without the paraphernalia

For the last four years of its late Fifties production, the dominant force of Jaguar's XK120 evolved into the 140, so named after the staggering top speed it eked from its 190bhp 4.2-litre inline six. Bigger brakes, rack and pinion steering and more modern shock absorbers were all that really separated it from the 120, and both still enjoy a hallowed reputation today.

Lotus Exige S: Proper overwrought, underweight Lotus straight from the old school

The S is the latest and greatest Exige, and one of the best track cars ever made. It's been bumped out of our Track Car Specials section by the new Lotus 2-Eleven, but leaving the Exige out of this list altogether would have been a criminal act, so here it is.

The S has a Toyota 2ZZ-GE normally-aspirated 1.8-litre four with variable-valve timing - it produces 190bhp at 7,800rpm and has a throttle response sharp enough to cut human flesh. The Exige chassis is stiffer than an Elise's and gives you positive downforce at speed, thanks to a smooth underbody, a rear diffuser and that excellent rear wing. It weighs 935kg - nothing, in other words. If you want to destroy supercars on a twisty track, use this.

Renault GTA: Overambitious, under-engineered, fragile, plastic, French. Just what we need to worry Porsche

The Eighties was a motoring decade utterly dominated in the public perception by Porsche and Ferrari, but a little-known French manufacturer was trying its hardest to stick it up Stuttgart.

Alpine's GTA - badged in Britain as a Renault and sold through the company's established dealerships - was a genuine foil to the 911s of its day, with ultra-lightweight polycarbonate bodywork and Renault's 2.7-litre V6 mounted right on the rear. Handling is still legendary and pace was aplenty back then, especially from the later 3.0-litre turbo.

Audi S8

An all-but-unknown quantity until it quickly achieved cult status in Ronin's epic car chase.

Audi RS4

Another Audi. They do Q-cars like no other, jamming a V8 into a small saloon.

---

Maybach 62S

Bigger than a block of flats, but a 612bhp bi-turbo V12 will drag it to 60mph in 5.2 seconds.

Lotus Carlton

A 377bhp twin-turbo Vauxhall with 176mph top speed? Someone was on the loopy juice.

Lancia Thema 8.32

Ferrari engine in an Eighties' Italian rust-bucket? At least no one's going to nick it.

BMW M5 Touring

Remove the limiter and you have an estate car capable of 200mph. Now put it back on.

Subaru Forester XT

Pace and ride height are a peerless B-road combo, and only other farmers have a clue.

Chevy Impala FBI

Upgraded powertrain, handling and brakes make being a security goon quite rewarding.

Volvo 850R

Favoured by our own law for its mixture of grunt, load space and history teacher image.

VW Passat W8

270bhp and four-wheel drive in a car even accountants find boring. Perfect.

BMW M3 E30: The original M3 defined the genre - thank God it was good

The first BMW M3 was built as a homologation special. As such, it ranks as one of BMW's best-ever translations of racing technology to the road - buy an E30 and you're getting the basis of the car that F1 journeyman Eric van de Poele won the DTM with in 1987. This is what makes the E30 so extraordinary - not that it handled so sweetly, with a poise and delicacy that few could match.

Nor that the four-year production run sold out in one year. Nor that it made up to 220bhp from its compact 2.3-litre engine. No, what sets the E30 apart is that it laid the precedent, the benchmark, for every 'M' car since. The chief reason the next M3 needs to be quite so good as it has to, is this.

Lancia Delta Integrale Evo: Five times world rally champion - not slow then

It's the export figures of the Lancia Delta Integrale that speak volumes. Nearly half of the 10,000 built were shipped abroad - despite Lancia's iffy reputation outside Italy. And the later Evo versions were the fastest of the lot.

215bhp and 231lb ft aren't to be sniffed at, even today, but back in the early Nineties that was enough to send the 'Grale chasing supercars. Add to that, massive grip and sublime steering, and you've got one of the fastest A-to-B cars ever.

Corvette Z06: Fast American that cuts it on the track and the road.

We'll avoid the cliches about the leaf spring rear suspension here. After all, Corvette has made them carbon on the Z06. Instead, you need to concentrate on the sheer grunt of this thing. 198mph, 505bhp, 3.7 seconds from 0-60mph. That's seriously quick no matter what's buried under the rear arches.

But the Z06 does more than straight line speed, because, finally, the Americans have created a car that also goes around corners. The Corvette is practically unbeatable in its class at Le Mans (five wins since 2001) thanks to the simple design which makes reliability so good. Final proof? It lapped the TG track in 1m 22s.

Honda Civic Type R

The new Type R is still causing debate amongst fans of its predecessor, for whom a procrastinated launch created angst akin to a horny teenager anticipating the loss of his virginity. It looks more extreme, but it's softer, no faster, and a tad less involving. Still, it places here due to that deft blend of mad styling, solid performance and great tractability.

Honda Integra Type-R: Superlatives aren't enough for the first R

This is probably the best-handling front-wheel-drive car of all time - a fact that should guarantee the Integra R a spot in this list. The Integra has shades of the Peugeot 205 GTI in the way it tightens its line on throttle lift - it encourages you to push hard with one of the sharpest turn-ins of any car. Add to that a ripping 187bhp, 1.8-litre, VTEC four that revs to 8,500rpm (the best four-cylinder engine ever? Not much argument here) that returns over 30mpg even when thrashed, plus a comfy, roomy interior with scarlet Recaro racing bucket seats, and you have a fast, affordable car that sits with the greats, no matter how expensive or exotic.

Daihatsu Cuore Avanzato TR-XX R4: Crazy Japanese mini-car, even crazier name

Look at the spec before you laugh too hard. Four cylinders, intercooled turbo, 4WD, independent suspension all round, 0-60mph in 8.5secs. Interesting, eh? We won't mention that it's only a 659cc engine because it's far more important to talk about how this 130cm-wide car handled.

It handled really well, that's how it handled - putting its gutsy little dollop of torque down hard onto the road and shooting out of corners fast enough to put repmobiles under serious pressure. No wonder so many were snapped up for rally duty. The Daihatsu Cuore Avanzato TR-XX R4 has now reached near-cult status and, with a name like that, who could be surprised? Felt insanely fast.

Audi R8: A conservative supercar? Time will tell

So new is the R8 that barely anyone round here's actually driven it. It is fast, we know that much, but it's also controversially styled and the first foray by a less than exotic marque into some seriously uncharted high-end waters.

The reality is though, Audi really knows how to go quick these days, and there's precious little wrong with its packaging either. This or a V8 Vantage? Depends if you're a gambling man. One thing's for certain, you'll see a lot more of these around, in part because they won't be always getting mended.

Ford Escort Mexico: You don't have to own a fast car to make ladies in short skirts like you, but it sure does help

Built to celebrate the Escort's first, third, fifth and eighth places in the 1970 London to Mexico rally, the MkI Mexico brought performance to the masses. The Mexico was the Escort Cosworth of that generation and owners were the envy of their neighbours in Seventies suburbia. The power stats weren't incredible - 87bhp and 92lb ft - but what marked out the Mexico was the fact that it was such an affordable package.

After all, the launch price was a paltry £1,150. And once you'd bought one, the fun didn't stop, because the Mexico was so simply designed and engineered that home tuning was almost compulsory.

The Weber twin-choke carburettor was easily tuned to give more power, and there was little doubt about an Escort's reliability after it completed the 17,000-mile rally. But nothing makes you feel faster than the envy of your neighbours. For that, the Mexico delivered.

Dodge Charger

The purists are squealing 'get it out, it's crap' but the cars in this line-up needn't be absolutely fast: feeling fast is enough. Gripping the huge thin-rim wheel, stomping the fat throttle pedal and hanging on as the 425bhp 426 Hemi fires you down the road should feel fast enough in a '67 Charger. Trying to haul the 1,500kg car to a halt using shoe-polish-tin drum brakes will confirm the feeling.

Renault 5 Turbo: The first ever mid-engined hot hatch, and brutally fast too The later front-engine front-drive Renault 5 GT Turbo was a Max Power favourite, but the original mid-engined rear-drive R5 Turbo of 1980 was the boss, winning outright in the 1981 Monte Carlo Rally. Without those quite excellent side scoops the engine would overheat and explode - they cool the urgent little 1.4 turbo, which produced 140bhp in standard form and anything up to 350bhp in the Maxi. Renault revisited the mid-engined theme with the Clio V6 in 2001, and although that thing tended to oversteer like a ******* on throttle lift-off, it was tame compared with the 5 Turbo. Think early 911 and then some... Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera: ridiculously expensive, fearsomely loud and way more orange than any car ever needs to be This is a silly car. It's EasyJet orange, it has a deeply stupid four-point racing harness when inertia-reel seat belts would have done, and its boot is so small that a small boot is just about the only thing that will fit into it. It's only two-10ths of a second faster to 62mph than the 'standard' Gallardo, but costs around £26,000 more. For which Lamborghini has removed some stuff in return for an extra 9bhp. Wow, knock yourselves out, guys. At £2,888 per brake horsepower, this is a fiscal sleight-of-hand Gordon Brown himself would be proud of. The Superleggera weighs 1,330kg, 100 less than the existing car, and sound-deadening material has been stripped out in the hunt for lighter weight. It should be noisy as hell in here, but it's perfectly tolerable. The cabin is trimmed in tactile Alcantara instead of leather, and there's carbon fibre on the doors, dashboard and transmission tunnel. Even the interior-door grab handles have been replaced with slimline Alcantara straps, with little carbon-fibre inserts to offset wear and tear. There's no radio, and a CD/satnav combo is an option. This is one of those cars that warps time as it accelerates, but it feels closer in spirit to a Caterham R500 than, say, a Murciélago. Its performance is massively urgent, rather than massively muscular. A power-to-weight ratio of 392bhp per tonne puts it within shouting distance of the real lightweight heavyweights, if you know what I mean, and well clear of direct rivals like the 911 GT3 RS (302bhp per tonne) and Ferrari Challenge Stradale (though the upcoming 430CS should match it). Porsche 911 GT3 For 40 years, Porsche engineers have honed and improved the 911. Yes, they could have moved the engine to the front decades ago, but where would the challenge be? Thanks to their fetish for sticking with a plan and honing and improving it, what they've ended up with is one of the most accomplished and characterful cars ever. It may have started out as not much more than a sporty VW Beetle in 1964, but it has evolved - just as we evolved opposable thumbs to be able to peel bananas and build Porsches. And now this, the new 911 GT3 RS, is the most complete and exciting supercar on Earth. Standstill to 62mph takes 4.2 seconds, and you're doing 100mph in 10 seconds dead - all thanks to the RS's 415bhp 3.6-litre flat six. But figures are just figures, numbers on a page. It's the way the engine does its job that blows me away. You can potter off down to the shops and it never bites. But for God's sake, don't go shopping in it. Just because you can, doesn't always mean you should. Please, please beat this car mercilessly until you think it can take no more. It revs with a furious, charging energy - it thrives and revs, and it never, ever feels anything other than urgent when you push it on. As the last flat-six 911 GT3 RS, the car you're looking at is probably a classic already. Aston N24: Normally an advocate of cars that waft and high-quality leather seating? You could be swayed by a hard-riding, stripped-out racing Aston N24. The car has been designed for track-day enthusiasts and for endurance racing at the 'Ring, but will also be eligible for the GT4 racing series, where it will be up against 911s and lightweight Lambos. With a little fettling, the N24 can be made road-legal under single-vehicle-type approval rules, but more of that in a minute. It costs £78,720+VAT, but as proper teams run as a business and will be able to reclaim the tax, Aston is able to boast that its stripped-out V8 actually costs less than the fully kitted road version. Body-wise, the N24 is the same as a normal V8 save for the different sill panel and the gappier grille, which a candid Aston man says is made by removing some of the slats from the normal grille. Power is raised from 380 to 410bhp, through secondary air injection, freer-breathing catalysts and the abandonment of important ancillaries, such as the aircon compressor. Although the suspension is the same, new squidgy bits lower the car and stiffen it up. The din, of course, is tremendous. The fat tyres tramline at low speeds, the roll cage interferes with three-quarter vision, and the ride is, as I suspected, on the lumpy side. But once the Aston is on a roll, it becomes tremendously of-a-piece and jolly good fun. It's a great way to remind yourself what's really going on when you drive. Deceptive, too: I expected it to feel as though it was going faster than it actually was. Turns out the opposite is true. Porsche 964 RS: Only for the seriously hardcore Some sort of spiritual descendent of the legendary 2.7 Carrera (No. 48), the 964 RS has found its own place in the burgeoning catalogue of Porsche performance specials, this time as an uncompromising track day tool. With thinner glass, lighter body panels, uprated suspension and more power, this was a purchase few people made lightly. All that bespoke stuff ensures that running costs remain terrifying to this day, but you'll still get done by at least one every time you lap the Nürburgring. Porsche Cayman S: Not 911-quick, but brilliant all the same Imagine a world without the 911. One without all that heritage, and where no one had ever convinced themselves that bolting an engine into the tail-end of a sports car was a fine idea. Given free rein, Porsche's engineers would certainly have come up with this instead, the Cayman S. The flat-six is mid-mounted, for ideal weight distribution and sweet handling responses. Few cars feel so keyed in as this one, with great steering feedback, perfect brakes and a stirring engine. And only the existence of the 911 prevents it having more than 295bhp. Porsche 356 Carrera One of the few pre-911 Porsches with the grunt to take on Jags and Ferraris of the Fifties, with a complex dry sumped, air-cooled, four-cam, flat-four lump revving away noisily out back. Porsche 924 Carrera GT: One 924 you won't see propped up on bricks in a council estate. Turbo power, 911 wheels and bespoke bodywork make for a rare and discerning choice. Porsche 928 GTS OK, this one's become a bit of an embarrassment with time, but it'll have its moment again. The GTS was the daddy, with 345bhp from a 5.4-litre V8. Porsche 911 2.7 RS: Still the one to have for the purist Among the Porsche cognoscenti there is but one 911 that remains a sacred cow, that no one has a bad word to say about lest they end up in a shallow grave, the imprint of a driving boot on their bloodless face. The 2.7 RS appeared in both Touring and Lightweight form, the latter weighing under 1,000kg and yet developing well over 200bhp. In mega demand these days and oft faked, sorted examples make six figures with ease. Porsche 968 Club Sport: Front-powered and stripped to the max If Porsches should be all about driving rather than city-boy strutting, one of the finest actually doesn't have its engine parked up the rear. This is the stripped-bare early Nineties 968 CS, with skimpy front bucket seats, rigid suspension and fat 911 Cup alloys. The UK-only Sport was much the same, but stuck the rear seats back in. Most will be shagged by now. Porsche 959: Born to rally, demonic on the road and 20 years ahead of its time Climb into a 959 and confusion could set in that you'd entered a mid-Eighties 911 instead. Focus on the plain dash though, and you'll see a speedo that reads beyond 200mph and a switch to electronically adjust damper settings. This is the real deal, the most sophisticated supercar of its time, with twin sequential turbos, four-wheel drive that can split 80 per cent of torque to the rear, and insane speed: try 0-60 in 3.7 seconds. Porsche 914/6: Like a 911, with less merchant banker appeal Tiny, mid-engined and just Seventies enough, the Porsche 914 has matured into a proper style icon. But only this one, the 914/6, has the true fast car credentials to match. Ditching the regular 914's meek VW lump, the 914/6 gets a flat-six from the contemporary 911T. All the go, with less of the whirling dervish handling. Porsche 911 GT1: 0-60 in 3.5 seconds? Yeah, that'll do Every so often motorsport gives birth to a truly great road car; and, on occasion, a truly ridiculous one too. Such is the 911 GT1, sired as a homologation special (Porsche scored a first and second at Le Mans with the GT1 in 1998) and barely tamed to make it road-worthy. Memorably, even this street version liked to billow smoke and flames from its exhausts. Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano: Accessible but brilliant supercar It's not the 620bhp here that makes the 599 number 43. Neither is it the fact the V12 engine is the same one that appears in the Ferrari Enzo. No, what guarantees the 599 a place in the quick list is that its pace is so useable. An Enzo might inch ahead over an open road, yet you'll be a lot more comfy in the 599. Does that make it compromised, not focused on speed? No way; 205mph isn't intense enough for you? Ferrari Dino 246GT: The centre of attention... In the grand scheme of fast cars, and especially within Famiglia Ferrari, the Dino isn't significantly quick. But without it, very few Ferraris would be what they are, for what you see here was the start of something radical and ingenious that would redirect sports car design forever. The low, sleek, lithe Dino went mid-engined, bringing with it a whole new world of handling, grip and looks. And, good God, what looks they were. Ferrari 288 GTO: Acceptable in the Eighties, ready for a comeback now The 288 GTO is one of those cars that has passed the indifferent sports-car enthusiast by, looking like an extreme incarnation of any out-of-favour, mid-engined Ferrari of the early Eighties. But this is the spiritual predecessor of the F40, a homologation special with a 190mph top speed from its race-bred 2.8-litre V8. Ferrari Daytona Dan Gurney drove a Daytona from New York to Los Angeles in just over 35 hours back in the early Seventies. He reached 170mph on some sections of the route. Fast? We think so. Ferrari F50 Not only do you sit on extremely thinly padded seats in the F50, strapped in just ahead of the V12, but you can also travel alfresco, just to make it feel even quicker. Ferrari F430 The first Ferrari to get the Manettino switch on the steering wheel, now anyone could appear an expert with its gradual slide mode. OK, given the space and the 'nads. Ferrari FXX: Schumacher requested one for a retirement present. Enough said Surely the FXX is just a dolled-up Enzo? A car that you can't drive on the road doesn't deserve a place here? We beg to differ. After all, the 29 FXX owners are getting to develop the next Ferrari hypercar, along with Michael Schumacher. Even in the rarefied world of Ferrari, the FXX guys are special - the hallowed turf of one of the fastest manufacturers on earth is their playground. And with 800bhp-plus, what a toy. Ferrari 250 LM: Well done and extremely rare People always bang on about the 250 GTO, and tired old rockers buy them as dead cert investments, but for us the ultimate evolution of the 250 series ranks as the LM, a mid-engined, road-going race car designed for sale to privateer teams. They only made 32 though, and plenty of those will have been stuffed in the Sixties, so happy hunting. And start saving. Ferrari Challenge Stradale: Lighter, faster, much stripier You shouldn't really put stripes on a car unless you can back it up. Good job the 360-based Challenge Stradale has got plenty of poke then. But this car is more about what it hasn't got, because Ferrari threw out a lot of luxuries to keep the weight down, so it's 110kg lighter than the regular 360; Ferrari also upped the power by 25bhp. Less can mean more.   Ferrari P4/5:The one and only - and even if you've got £2.5 million to blow, you can't have it. There can be only one, but maybe that gives it more cred. A bespoke production by great Ferrari coachbuilder Pininfarina, running on a 660bhp, 220mph Enzo chassis, it was made for a rich American car collector as a one-off. The cost? About £2.5 million. And now it's priceless. And he let us drive it. And that means he's a good chap, ta. Peugeot 207 GTi: Does the 207 deserve to sit alongside the 106s, 205s, Rallyes and the rest in Peugeot's pantheon of hot hatches? It's certainly a refined little car: easy to drive yet also reassuring on bad roads. Compared to other small hot hatches - we're looking at you, Corsa VXR - it doesn't feel especially quick as the engine delivers the power as urbanely as a servile butler. It's also softer than many hot superminis, but on a lumpy road this pays off. The Pug's suspension swallows bumps better and finds more traction out of slow bends, while the chassis feels sophisticated and agile throughout. But the 207 is just a fraction short on the fun factor. Unlike Peugeot hot hatches of old, it just feels too grown-up. Vauxhall Corsa VXR: It might be the most over-branded car since last year's limited edition Mini GP, but you can't deny that the Corsa VXR is striking. The VXR lettering is everywhere. The sheet metal is standard Corsa, so it still looks a bit tall and narrow, but the front bumper and body kit muscle it out and the rear diffuser is claimed to genuinely help cancel lift. Inside it's just as frantic, with body-grappling Recaro buckets and chromed-up steering wheel. The interior's not the only thing that's frantic. The VXR's engine comes in with a mid-range bang then careers off to the redline with a lot of noise, a hint of coarseness and a heady tingle of excitement. The result? The whizz-bang gratification of a BTCC race. No, it's not subtle, but it's a hell of a lot of fun. Mini Cooper S: Look at the thing: an insult to authenticity. All its vents are blanks and the bonnet vent goes nowhere; it fed the intercooler on the last-gen supercharged engine but the turbo's is elsewhere. But forget the tricksy falseness and you've got a car that forges a powerful bond with its driver. BMW always insisted the Mini got a low-slung driving position - its steering wheel and pedals are absolutely straight ahead. The steering is talkative and confidence-boosting, so it's easy to have the Mini scuttling through corners right on its limit. Sure, it's a bit short on traction and it's got laughably tiny rear seats, but judged on what matters in a hot hatch - the hotness - the Mini is near-perfect. Renault Clio 197 An astonishing well-developed car. There's a purity to the 197's handling, a perfectly-measured and quick-witted reaction to any input, that's an absolute thing of wonder. The two-litre naturally-aspirated engine isn't bad, either. Around the middle revs the noise is complex, harmonious and resonating with intent. Right at the top end it gets a mite hoarse, but you won't mind because by this stage there's a wild hunger to its accelerative force and tack-sharp responsiveness that lets you exploit the handling all the more. Yes, there's a deficit of mid-range torque and the steering lacks a bit of feel, but the Clio 197 has a purity of intent that's simply breathtaking. Fiat 500 Abarth: Well, nearly. Abarth. One of the most evocative badges in the history of hot, tiny cars, and one left dangling over a precipice of obscurity by Fiat for way too long. Perhaps they were just waiting for the right candidate to stick it back onto. So, finally, here it is, a proper, raucous, quick, small Fiat, given a full working over by Abarth. Of sorts. OK, yes, we made it up. But Fiat can consider itself to blame for egging us on. The rumours of an Abarth 500 have snowballed recently, and we just couldn't wait to see the official photos. So here it is: our shot at the Abarth 500. Like it? KTM X-Bow For those who know nothing about motorbikes, KTM is an Austrian manufacturer famed for its dirt bikes. Racing is at the very heart of the brand - KTM won the Dakar rally this year, its seventh victory in a row - and it has managed to win more than 100 world titles in motocross. And KTM has put all of its go-faster know-how into this: the X-Bow. Lightweight carbon-fibre monocoque, racing suspension with double triangular wishbone axles, two-litre turbocharged Audi engine: the X-Bow ticks all the right boxes to be an Ariel Atom beater. But more importantly, just look at it. Floating orange body panels, blades at the rear: utterly, utterly stunning. If that doesn't get you respect from the biking world, what will? Bentley Continental GT: On ice 200mph. On a frozen sea. In a Bentley Conti GT? You'd have to be a bit mad, surely? Juha Kankkunen fits the bill. The four-time World Rally Champion has just set the world ice-driving speed record in the Conti, touching nearly 200mph on the frozen sea just south of the Arctic circle. If that doesn't sound hairy enough, consider the studs on the Conti's special tyres. There are 130 diamond-shaped studs per wheel, each of which strike the ice 40 times per second in the speed run. They're pulling 2,500g's. To put that in context, a fighter pilot has to endure about nine gs, max. Oh, and they'd never been tested before Juha's record-breaking run. As we say: quite, quite mad. Nissan Skyline GT-R R32: Forget the newer GT-Rs - the original Godzilla is still the best. The GT-R blew the world away when it was launched in 1989. Dubbed 'godzilla' by Wheels magazine in Australia, the name summed the car up perfectly, and it stuck. The R32 followed a long line of Skyline GT-Rs which traced their roots back to the Sixties. All dominated touring-car racing in their home country and this new car would be no exception - winning in Group A was the engineers' target, and the Porsche 959 was the benchmark car. The twin-turbo 2.6-litre R26 straight-six was unburstable - a simple boost upgrade would unleash 400bhp, and the car's intelligent 4WD chassis could handle it. The racer was so fast, it was banned in the Australian Touring Car Championship, whose organisers formulated rules for V8s only. "Sorry Ricey, we can't beat that four-wheel-drive 600bhp monster with our pissy V8s, so please rack off." Renault Clio Williams: Fast and pure enough to make Frank proud. The Clio Williams had no link to the Formula One team except the name, but it hardly mattered. Renault took the excellent Clio 16v and tweaked the suspension, then took out a smidge of weight. The result is still seen as one of the best hot hatches ever made. Rare, too - only about 1,200 were built. Fiat 695 Abarth: Much more hardcore than it looks. 38bhp. That's all the 695SS Abarth could muster from its air-cooled, rear-mounted engine. It's got be driven flat-out everywhere, foot buried deep, because it takes an age to get the speed back... and that's what makes it fun. Small speed, big smile. Jaguar XKR: Relaxing speed can still be fast Sometimes being fast isn't enough. Sometimes a fast car needs to carry the entire weight of a company on its metal haunches. If it succeeds, great. If not, then that company might falter. We're talking about the Jaguar XKR, a car that at last managed to prove that Jag could make attractive and, crucially, modern fast cars. The thing the XKR does isn't out-and-out speed - what it does better is lithe and relaxed pace. The aluminium in it cuts weight, increasing agility, but the most pleasing aspect of pushing on in this is interaction of the auto gearbox; it responds almost as keenly as a paddle-shift manual, only much smoother. Fast and a totem of Jag's salvation - worthy, we think. Audi Sport quattro You don't get much more justification for being in this list than ranking as a landmark. Hello, Audi Quattro. This car defined an entire section of motorsport in world rallying. All those Evos and Imprezas would be nothing without it. And let's not forget the seriously daft Sport quattro - rarer, wider, a whole foot shorter and packing up to 444bhp from its turbo five. Unique. Lamborghini Murcielago LP640: The last of the truly phat Lambos? So much faster, more sorted and more evil-looking than the previous Murciélago, that it almost deserves a new name. But LP640 will do, and it will be remembered as one of the truly great Lamborghinis. The 640 refers to PS, or 633bhp in our language, and that's plenty of urge. Audi will develop the Murc's replacement, and we sincerely hope it shares this car's lunatic bravado. Ferrari F40: Old Man Enzo's last hurrah The fact that it's now 20 years old doesn't diminish the impact the F40 made at launch. It was the first production road car to break 200mph, built to celebrate Ferrari's 40th anniversary and put the Porsche 959 in its place. It weighs only 1,100kg, thanks to advanced carbon fibre, Kevlar and aluminium construction, and its 3.0-litre twin-turbo V8 packs 478bhp. Enough to worry anything on this list. Ford GT: Ford's centenary celebration - 98 years to wait for the next one then Some may consider the retro GT40 copycat styling a bit twee, but the Ford GT's performance is beyond question. With this car, Ford's engineers proved that they are the equal of any in the world. The GT is seriously fast, hitting 100mph from rest in 8.8 seconds, on the way to a top speed of 210mph. Its 5.4-litre supercharged V8 is properly Yank muscle car in character, as it should be, and its 550bhp and 500lb ft are delivered in a seamless surge. But most impressive of all is its easy, tractable and friendly nature. Anyone could hop in this car and feel comfortable and at home in seconds. Clarkson didn't get on with his, but we suspect others will just fine. Bugatti EB110: Ugly as a monkey's rear end, but who cares? Four turbos, 12 cylinders, 542bhp (or 592 in the SS), carbon-fibre chassis built by jet aircraft manufacturers Aérospatiale, 4WD, 0-62mph in 3.2secs, 219mph top speed. No wonder the Bugatti EB110 caused a stir in 1991. All it needed was scissor doors, and it had those too. The EB110 is the Veyron's spiritual forbear and led the firm into bankruptcy, but not before Michael Schumacher bought a yellow one. Porsche Carrera GT: Porsche aimed at the Enzo and hit it dead on A TG staffer once saw a GT accelerate away at the Nürburgring, while giving chase in a Subaru Impreza STi. "Get it out of fourth gear!", yelled his companion, before realising the car was in second. It's that kind of car, the Carrera GT - fast enough to redefine your concept of fast. The 5.7-litre V10 engine was originally developed as an F1 powerplant, and it sounds it - emitting a piercing, high-pitched shriek unlike any other road car. It's exactly as capable and planted and ultimately superior as you'd expect if Porsche put its mind to a 558bhp, £320,000, 205mph Enzo rival. Pagani Zonda F The newest brand in supercars has become one of the most successful, thanks to blinding all-round ability. A 214mph top speed is just a bonus. Ferrari Enzo Ugly as a squinting goat, but a hell of a lot faster. A heady 225mph puts this V12 in the übercar category, and it steers and stops as well as anything on four wheels. Mercedes McLaren SLR 722 Fast in a straight line, but lacking in other areas, like ride and brake feel. Still, we like fast in a straight line. Especially when the speedo reads 209mph. Nissan R390 GT1: Never sold but still freezingly cool Nissan had a decent shot at Le Mans at a time when the competition was as fierce as it's ever been. It was 1997/98, when Porsche, McLaren, Toyota, Mercedes and Ferrari were all at it (no sign of Audi). The Japanese firm did well, especially in 1998, when the R390s finished 3rd, 5th, 6th and 10th behind the all-conquering Porsche GT1s. Although road-going 911 GT1s and Mercedes CLK GTRs were built, we think the R390 is cooler. Only one road car was ever shown, with a price tag of $1m. When Le Mans rules changed, Nissan pulled out. The road-going R390 is dragged out of its museum and thrashed on special occasions. Bugatti Veyron: The fastest car ever - 253mph anyone? It took Bugatti's owner, Volkswagen, a full seven years to make this car work. And it's hardly surprising it was forced to delay the launch, given the numbers involved. A 253mph top speed? Sheesh! Not easy to keep it on the road, let alone control the power delivery and bring its 1,888kg to a controlled stop. But sorted it was in the end, and we'll probably never see another car like it. The new BMW M3's V8 engine Everything about this new M engine is built for razor-sharp response times, and all optimised for lightness and a crazed, hectic, high-rev mania. For squeezing out every last drop of power, it revs to a massive 8,300rpm. But an engine isn't just about the measurables - power, response, weight, durability, economy and the rest. It's about the way it grabs the other sense, and the intellect too. Which must mean that the sound of this V8 searing towards its redline, change-up lights going off like fireworks, is likely to be one of the all-consuming experiences of 2007. Brabus Rocket In third, at 80mph, in the dry, the Brabus Rocket will leave two black lines as far down the road as your confidence will allow your right foot to get away with. This is a CLS that pumps out 730bhp from a heavily-revised 6.3-litre version of Merc's biturbo V12, this time sporting Brabus's orwn design of larger-diameter turbochargers. Torque is limited to 811lb ft because wheelspin gets to be a unique and bum-puckering issue at 90mph in third gear if things are left at the engine's natural 958lb ft output. Even so, by 4,000rpm, your rear wheels are smoking like a Beagle in a science lab. At Brabus, this is normal. Hamann M6 At last, the ludicrous has landed. OK, Hamann's M6 has only (ha, 'only') got 560bhp thanks to a new exhaust and massaged ECU, but this thing is a proper dose of tuning lunacy. It sounds right, gets plenty of attention and is certainy as fast as the original, though there's something deeply unsettling about doing this to a car as resolved as an M6. Geiger Mustang Geiger's orange and matt-black Mustang that has a 520bhp supercharged engine, huge chrome rims, a half-inch ride height and enough ICE to have a good crack at the Titanic. Ok, it doesn't drive well, but it's too much fun to bother about the fact that it can't do certain things. Like corners, for example. It's proper tuning to excess, and not a clever engine in sight. Just American muscle injected with German steroids. The Alpina B6 The Alpina B6 still bears the BMW roundel. It also doesn't stray too far from the look of the original - just wheels, a rear spoiler and a bib on the front bearing the Alpina name - despite being capable of very nearly 200mph. This isn't an M6 with 20-inch rims and a sports exhaust. This is a 500bhp engine achieved using a turbocharged version of a 4.4-litre V8 which produces completely different driving characteristics to the M6's V10. Forced induction boosts its power from low down, making it blisteringly quick but completely unlike an M6. You don't have to rev hard to purge power to the rear wheels: it's obviously special, but it simply doesn't feel tuned. TechArt Turbo Cayman: This Cayman has a 911 Turbo engine with 385bhp stuffed under the huge rear wing. And it blows your socks clean off without feeling like someone dumped a V8 in a shopping trolley. The balance is superb, the grip is capable of giving you a headrush, just before a dose of opposite lock cleans up the corner exit. The engine seems perfect: giving just the right amount of power means you could take on a 911 without raising a Roger Moore eyebrow. A real junior supercar? Yes please. Lotus Elise S: Pure driving pleasure from the team at Hethel We love the Elise because it reminds you that sometimes driving a car is about more than getting from A to B. It can also be about taking a route via C, Q and Scotland. This is pure concentrated car, and reminds you how baggy almost everything else is. Even sports cars have slack in the steering, dressed up as a safety measure, in case you sneeze or cough or do an especially sturdy fart. It's only when you get into an Elise - which if you're tall may require a small crane and some goose fat - that you realise how good steering can be. Turn wheel, car turns. No slop to separate you from the machinery and the road beneath. The Elise is about covering ground quickly. In that respect, it really is just a car, no more, no less. But by God, what a car. Ford Falcon XB GT: An ordinary family car with an extraordinary secret life The XB Falcon was a perfectly harmless mid-Seventies Aussie family car. Until, in 1979, master film-maker George Miller bolted a few movie cameras to a gaggle of XBs and made them look like they were travelling faster than any cars had ever travelled before. The film was Mad Max, of course, and the XB was the star, out-acting Mel Gibson (not hard) and burning itself into car freaks' brains forever. A couple of XB sedans were painted up in bright yellow as cop cars. One of them rams into a Mazda Bongo and smashes straight through a caravan. The black XB GT was given a fake supercharger, Concorde nose and side-exit exhausts to become 'The Last of the V8 Interceptors'. "I'm scared," said Max. "It's that rat circus out there. Any longer out on that road and I'm one of them, a terminal psychotic." Too right, mate. And your car's there already. Peugeot 205 GTi: Old school hot hatch beats modern pretenders The 205 GTi's engine pops and splutters, and the bodywork makes those containers they use for take-away curry feel like the sides of a battleship - and the whole thing is just bloody marvellous. We're going through a golden period of fast hatches at the moment, but somehow the class of 2007 seems to sit at the front, getting all the questions right and sucking up to teacher. Whereas the 205 GTi slouched at the back, flicking Vs at the VW Golf and audibly breaking wind. Peugeot hot hatches have never been the same since, but nowadays, people want aircon and satnav and a sense that in the event of an accident they won't be sending you home in a bucket. Which is a shame, because it means the GTi 1.9 will never be topped for sheer unruly excitement. McLaren F1: The Oxford English Dictionary's definition of fast? It has to be Gordon Murray's McLaren F1. In the driver's footwell of the McLaren F1 there's a carefully shaped bit of trim that covers the throttle cable as it travels back to the engine. Beautifully sculpted, rigorously neat and made from carbon fibre. This tells you a lot about the car. Designed without thought for cost, pared down, blessed with an attention to detail that makes heart surgeons look sloppy. We like engineering at Top Gear and this car is enough to give any engineering fan strange stirrings in the underpants. Sad then that the F1 is not famous for being a pure manifestation of one moustachioed man's quest to make the ultimate car. Instead, everyone seems fixated with its 241mph top speed and the band of pretenders - Bugatti, Koenigsegg, some bloke in America who's fitted six superchargers to a V8 kit car - who have tried to usurp that headline figure with varying degrees of success. But let's not forget that the McLaren was never about one meaningless number. In fact, although the factory had done some complex maths about projected top whack, the F1 didn't actually prove what it could do in real life until five years after it went on sale. Because the McLaren F1 was never about travelling at high speed in a straight line. It was about detailing, lightness and lack of compromise. And that's why it's still the hypercar daddy. Hire car: There was no other contender and you know it 'You have to get a car that handles really well. This is extremely important, and there's a lot of debate on this subject - about what kind of car handles best. Some say a front-engined car; some say a rear-engined car. I say a rented car.' P.J. O'Rourke, Republican Party Reptile. Yes, the fastest car in the world is, as O'Rourke would have, one that belongs to someone else. Specifically, the faceless corporations that live in lurid-coloured branch offices on airport concourses and slightly inconvenient out-of-town locations across the world. Hiring a car is an exciting business from the off. What are they going to give you this time? Because although hire companies deal in categories of car, everyone knows the vehicle they actually give you is determined by someone in the back office spinning a massive wheel of chance. What'll it be this time? Punto? Focus? 3-Series? Maybach 62? Lockheed F-117A stealth fighter? Or maybe you got off the plane late, and all they have left is an Albanian-spec Kia Sedona with no aircon and an engine that runs on leaves. The great rental car lottery is one of life's strangest thrills. But it's when you've got the keys that the real fun starts. Jump in, gag slightly at the chemical synthesis of stale fruit that they've used to mask the fact that the previous renter left a dead monkey in the boot, and then go, go, GO! Ragging the engine until it bangs off the limiter, late-braking in a way Schuey would have described as 'brave', finding out what changing gear without the clutch feels like - all of these loutish pleasures are yours in hire-car land. Cornering so hard the tyres peel off the rims is good too, and if it gets a bit hairy, well, you've got the full CDW to protect you. It does cover the side panels, the roof and some of my limbs, right? You can do anything you want in a hire car as long as you always remember one crucial thing - it's not yours.