Best in Class 2010.

So 2010 has finally ended. It's been a long year for me and it's also been a long year for the motor industry. It has seen all sorts of innovations and new cars. So here is my list for best in class. I'm covering five different classes of car here.

Supercar
There can be only one. At first I was considering the Ferrari 458 Italia but then it came to me. Why was I considering anything? The winner has to be the most clear cut in all history. Of course it's the Bugatti Veryon Super Sport. The standard Veryon is no slouch. That car can reach 60 in 2.5 seconds, hit 100 in 5.3 and go on to do a top speed of 253 miles per hour. But the Super Sport changes all of that. 0-60 remains the same but after that things start changing. The engine now produces 1,200bhp, approximately 200 more than the standard car. 0-100mph times decrease to 4.8 seconds. So if you owned a new Nissan Micra (subject of the last blog) the SS Veryon will be doing 100mph three times faster than it'll take you to do 60! After it's done that it'll continue accelerating to 267mph. That's just showing off. I mean it's a full G Whizz faster than a Lamborghini Mucielago LP 640. It also set a new lap record around the Top Gear test track. For these reasons I have to give it the award. Only snag, minor one, is that it costs £2,000,000. Enjoy.

Small Car
This car didn't get this award for it's outrageous performance figures. It's competition included names such as the Fiat 500 Twin air, Audi A1 and the Micra. Not unsubstantial competition. The winner is the Citroen DS3. This car wins the award for being beautifully styled. No small car makes me look twice as easily as this car does. The interior is no worse than the outside, with quality materials throughout. You can sit four passengers, maybe not as comfortably as other small cars, but definitely comfortably enough. You can carry stuff in the boot too. The handling is fun to explore as well and performance figures aren't bad either. I'm not going to get bogged down in them but also out is the DS3 Racing which takes power up to 200bhp. It's probably the most complete small car of the year and so far as I can see offers no drawbacks. If you had to nitpick you could argue that the lack of dealerships in Alaska stocking the DS3 is a minor downside.

Big Car
Should be American this but it isn't. Why should it be American? Because all there cars are huge. The actual winner however is the Mercedes E63 AMG. Although the engine isn't quite as large as the name claims it is (it's only a 6.2 litre) the car is still mega powerful. It produces 518bhp which is a lot for a super saloon car. The figures are impressive as a result. 0-60 is done and dusted in 4.4 seconds and the top speed is electronically limited to 155mph. Shame that because this car could undoubtedly go a lot faster. The car is also set up to oversteer and as a result is a real hoot on a track. Being a Mercedes it's very luxurious inside and provides a heck of a lot of space in the back and the boot. I also find it to be very attractive. A very complete car all round.

Eco Car
I'm probably going to surprise you when I award this to a BMW. The car is the 320d Efficient Dynamics model. And now you're probably really skeptical. How could this win the award over such cars as the Fiat 500 Twinair or the Honda CR-Z? But what if I told you this car could do 68mpg on the combined cycle? And what if I went on to say that the engine produces 168bhp? How about if I told you that the car can do 60 in eight seconds and reach 142mph? Surely that's award winning! Naturally as a BMW you get a premium cabin, good handling and a comfortable ride. It costs £27,245. Not especially cheap then but put it this way. That's 100th of the price of the Veryon Super Sport. Bargain!

Concept
Every year I think it helps to look to the future. There have been many concepts revealed this year. You had the MG Zero, Porsche 918 Spyder, Mazda Shinari and all the Lotus cars. I'm tempted to give the award to the Lotus Espirit but I won't because one car really caught my eye. The Jaguar CX-75. As far as technology goes this car has it. It's powered by four 198bhp electric motors on each wheel. These allow the car to reach 60 in 3.4 seconds and go on to reach 204mph. That means it's right in the ballpark for a supercar. But after the batteries run out of juice, two turbine engines take over and produce 188bhp together. This extends the cars range to 560 miles. In other words the best for an eco car! And it is an eco car. At the moment Jaguar are looking to put it into production and anticipate it'll take 7 years to reach dealerships. When it does I have no doubts on it being a success. Why? Because it's bloody good looking.

And that's it. The Veryon SS is the supercar of the year. The Citreon DS3 is the small car of the year, Merc E63 AMG is the large, a BMW is the eco and the Jaaaag CX-75 is the concept car of the year. But since this is 2010 I can also hand out two more awards. Best and worst car of the last decade. So here goes.

Best car of the last decade
The Bugatti Veryon. Not the Super Sport. The standard Veryon came out half way through the year and when it did it made mouths drop to the floor. Boasting 1001bhp and the performance figures it did it was the most ground breaking car ever. It had a troubled birth and during development many people started saying it was impossible and the boss of Volkswagon was mad for investing so much money into the project. But thank god he did because the end car is as spectacular as the grand canyon. In fact put the two next to each other and the Bugatti will earn more gawpers. Of course it's not brilliantly practical. It'll empty it's tank in 10 minutes when running at full speed. There is no real boot space. It costs £1,600,000 and on UK roads 180 of those miles per hour are completely useless. But despite all that this car just has to win. There's nothing else quite like it, apart from the Super Sport, which is almost exactly the same thing, just faster.

Worst car of the decade
If you believe there in no such thing as a bad car as all cars are the same, you haven't heard of the Reva G Whizz. It's an eco car which usually means dull at the best of times but this car goes way to far. In fact it might be too terrible to be dull. I can think of many modes of transport that I'd rather use and one of them is dead in Great White Sharks belly. But why is it terrible? Well for an eco car to work it has to have decent range capabilities. I would say 100 miles at the least. The G Whizz can do 48. And that is if you drive it at 25 without stopping, slowing down, speeding up, listening to the radio or hitting wind. Real world range is only 25. This means that you would only be able to go 12.5 miles from home if you want to make it back on one charge. Pathetic. Unfortunately the car takes half an hour to recharge at best. You'd need an industrial charger to do that. Most people don't and as a result it takes a full hour to charge. Sadly the power comes from the polluting power stations and the amount of power this thing goes through means it's not that econonimical. At this point you're probably expecting dynamite performance figures and huge power to be the cause of this dreadful range. Sadly this isn't the case. Hitching a ride with a turtle would be faster. I doesn't do 60 as it's top speed is 50, when travelling down hills! But cars that don't go fast are usually practicle, so this must be unbelievably practicle. Well it isn't. I can assure you that the car is stupidly cramped. Only a five footer could drive comfortably and if you wanted passengers in the back you bought the wrong car. You're more likely to get two people in the back of a Ferrari! There maybe solace in the luxuries and ride quality but there aren't. You get a radio and some leather inserts on the doors but that's it. It makes a Lotus look like Buckingham Palace. And as for the ride, well with no suspension worth talking about it's terrible. Handling is also god aweful. It looks absoloutely foul. It's like the designer was told to make a car that looked like a wart! So for doing nothing even remotely passable I dub the Reva G Whizz as the worst car of 2010.

Thankyou for reading.