Horse 302 - Sexiest Cars on the Road

Perhaps a follow up to Prawn's post about the Astra (and even Horse 292) this post has been on the back burner for a while...

So I don't think that the Astra is the sexiest car on the road, actually it looks a bit too corporately bland to be sexy in my book. Here then hopefully are the 6 sexiest common cars on the road - please note that these are the common cars, I could have said the GT40 but since I've never seen one they hardly count, not do I could either the 1968 Corolla, the Mini or the Beetle as all of these have been discontinued for some times and fall into the realms of "classic"

6 - New Beetle - New Beetle isn't more sexy than the old one. New Beetle qualifies in it's own right because it is fairly common now and actually breaks the mould of what a 2 door hatch should look like. Purists may whinge that it's not a "Beetle" but keep in mind that the car is a Golf in a different package. My only thing wrong is that dashboard that extends seemingly forever over the horizon out the front.

5 - Ford Ka - I wax lyrical about these little cuties. Very rarely does one actually get something so desirable on the road. I fell in love with the prototype at the 1995 Birmingham Motor Show, and it took 6 years before I finally got my hands on one (they say that you're often the happiest when dreams and reality match - I could not have asked for a better car than this). Even watching other Kas go down the street still turns my head. This was the last Alec Issigonis designed car (the guy responsible for the Mini) and it's good to see that the old guy never ever lost it. So why only 5? There's better than it.

4 - Holden Monaro GTSR LS2 - You'd probably start to think I was going a bit fruity with the so called "girly" cars so far but nothing is quite as subtle as bashing an egg with a 16 pound sledgehammer. The two bonnet scoops are a reminder of the HT Monaro but the LS2 adds something new... even more brute power. 335kW comes from 6 litres or 438bhp - that's more than the race variants of the RS500 Sierra. I fear that most road users are only ever going to see the taillights of this beast.

3 - Daihatsu Copen Turbo R - I could never bring myself to own one for fear of being laughed at but the little Copen is a very well conceived car. You don't step into a Copen, it's like putting on a warm coat; to drive one of these you really do lose all trace of where you end and the car begins. It's cheap, chic and a little bit Carnaby St... just not in the rain.

2 - Citroen C2 - There is a variant of this with silver C-Pillars and a brushed silver inlay that reads C I T R O E N across the boot of the car. Evoking memories of the 2CV, C2 again shows why little French cars just seem to look better than everyone elses.

1 - Renault Clio Sport 182 - Although the 172 was a nicer looking car, it isn't sold here (or else the Astra Coupe would have made this list) the 182 however makes up for its looks somewhat raw looks with its vents and scoops by being butt-numbingly powerful. Having driven one, the car has much more of a shove in the back than a Monaro does yet it's nimble enough to scoot through traffic.