Hearing Chris Rea’s “Road to Hell” played on London’s Magic - you can probably guess my location - started me thinking what might be the fastest car on British roads today.  With knowledge of where I was, you will appreciate that I had plenty of time to ponder this issue, if not the entire meaning of life, the universe and everything, before reaching my destination.  However, before answering the question, it is necessary to define the criteria against which candidate vehicles should be judged.
Relevant properties might include:
1) Blistering acceleration, to rip up the tarmac at the traffic light Grand Prix.
2) A high top speed, anything south of 240kph is strictly for the woosies.
3) Superglue roadholding, Baldock to Buntingford in 8 minutes flat.
Adding such attributes together, you have a prescription for an excellent track car.  But, bearing in mind the title of the article, as Gordon Brown would say, I have rejected all of these in favour of the following.  My overriding criterion for the fastest road car is as follows –
The ability to complete a long journey at high speed, mainly on motorways but with some dual carriageways and some ‘A’ roads thrown in, not just once but on regular basis and, here is the crux, in a sufficiently unobtrusive manner that the driver doesn’t end up with enough speeding tickets to launch a flag day. On this basis, I have eliminated a 911 (the phrase red rag to a bull springs to mind) or a Mitsubishi EVO R (the phrase red drawers to a monk springs to mind). Having recently ‘burned off’ a BMW 530 and an Audi S3 on an end-to-end trip along the M20, my nomination for the Brit Awards as the fastest car on Britain’s roads today is: a Vauxhall Corsa 1.7dti. Any dissenters out there?

Peter Coxapple
(Essex – cultural centre of Europe)