Take the sports car. Sure, it's open to degrees of interpretation - at what point does a sports car become a supercar, for instance? - but the classic elements and priorities don't really change. The nub is a performance profile that engages brain, butt, adrenalin, heart rate, sweat glands, swearing, addiction and the rictus response with the force of a pair of buck stags locking horns. It's called involvement; everything else is supplementary.
The grand tourer, on the other hand, eschews violent prioritisation. It aims for finer resolution over a broader tableau. High performance, yes, but swathed in comfort, hush and sophistication. Impressive speed, yes, but not just for its own sake. Sustaining an effortlessly rapid pace over long distances is its raison d'etre. Sports cars take care of your spiritual well-being, GTs take care of business.
So are there any pure sports cars or GTs making the most of this sinuous mountain road fifty miles south of Bologna today? Quite possibly. But you're not looking at them. Nothing so straightforward. This is the class of 2001/2 and it isn't just Mercedes' extraordinary new tech-fest SL500 that's brainier and more complex than the best of last year's bunch. Intensively schooled in advanced crossover psychology and the trashing of traditional class boundaries, all these weapons-grade convertibles have grander ambitions than your common-or- garden grand tourer and enough afterburner to seriously spoil the day of the most determined sports car hotshoe.
Thumbnail credentials to set the scene, then. Jaguar's XKR 100, at £74,950, is a post-Silverstone limited edition XKR with 'R' Performance pack enhancements that embrace recalibrated adaptive damping, stiffer springs and anti-roll bars and retuned steering. Add black paintwork, monster 20-inch 'Montreal' alloys, body-gripping Recaros, chunkier steering wheel/gearknob, drilled pedals and footrest, aluminium jewellery. Meanest-looking XKR yet without question. No extra power, though; let us know if you think 370bhp, 387lb ft of torque and 0-60mph in 5.3sec sound inadequate.
Roofless and ruthless, the new M3 convertible's reputation for fusing near-supercar thrust and gratification with four seats and a £41K ticket parlays into an even more powerful presence here, despite BMW's apparent inability to nail the body rigidity issue. M-Power straight six (338bhp) is one of the current greats and the M-diff-equipped chassis is naturally balanced for show-offs. Carrera 2 straight-line pace meets benign power-sliding. Given its abundant pace, practicality and dynamic flair, potentially the greatest crossover act of all.
Maserati Spyder Cambiocorsa, £74,400. What a name (the C-word is Italian for 'racing gearbox'). And, to be perfectly honest, what a car. Essentially a chopped, topped and re-engineered 3200 GT coupe, the Spyder sidelines the twin-turbo motor of the coupe for the Ferrari 360's quad-cam V8 (bored-out from 4.0 to 4.2 litres, fitted with 32- rather than 40-valve heads, de-tuned) and six-speed F1 paddle-shift transaxle transmission. Massive power (390bhp) and a purist chassis with cutting-edge adaptive electronic damping seek to swing the needle sharply away from the GT roots of the coupe and bury it in the sports car end of the scale, but the opulent trim and appointments stay put. Build quality, yanked up to Ferrari standards at the insistence of Luca di Montezemolo, is almost certainly best ever for a Maserati.
Which at least moves it closer in one respect to the meticulously screwed together and finished Mercedes SL 500, likely to hit British showrooms at just the right side of £70,000 when it goes on sale early next year. The iconic sportster for softies and Southfork types - arguably the first to successfully straddle the sports/touring divide - is re-cast (mostly in aluminium) as an exquisitely proportioned, tech-led colossus, drawing heavily on advanced engineering already established with the S-class and CL and the folding, boot-stowed hard-top wizardry of the SLK.
A world first is the Sensonic brake-by-wire system which dispenses with a mechanical link between brake and hydraulics. A computer translates driver input into hydraulic pressure. Advantages include faster reaction time and no pulsing when ABS is activated. The system even dries the brake discs when it's raining by subtle braking, activated by the wipers. With a comparatively modest 302bhp, a kerb weight around 20kg up on the Jag's and auto-only transmission, the Merc is the least rapid of the four in a straight line: a claimed 6.3sec to 60mph and limited 155mph max. But don't be misled. The sheer reach of the on-board technology could steamroller rivals here out of sight. Or the SL could be fatally wounded by a shortfall of soul. We'll know soon enough.
I'm just relieved we're all together this sunny morning in the beautiful hills of northern Italy. Heavily stubbled art ed Damian Smith and evo hardnut John Hayman (runs on fags, coffee and adrenalin) were on the road from Blighty for two days in the Jag and BMW before meeting up with photographer Gus in the SL and, finally, me in the Maser, driven here straight from Bologna's elegant town square less than an hour down the road. Some issues are already close to being settled.
The Jag's mastery of the long haul for one. 'It's still a big old GT at heart,' opines JH. 'Its ride and composure on motorways, autoroutes, auto-bahns, autostradas and so on were clearly better than the M3's. It's comfy, smooth and very fast.'
Good to hear such a glowing endorsement for the pumped-up old timer. But John isn't through yet. '...That is until it confronted Italy's finest. All that mass lets it down as a back-street scratcher. It can hack it all right if you crack the technique - slow in, bloody fast out - but just slowing down all that bulk on steep downhill hairpins concentrates the mind. So does rain. Those vast tyres endow the Jag with huge amounts of grip in the wet and dry, but standing water is a no-no! I had a couple of 'moments' when water got the better of the tyre/tarmac interface. One-twenty mph Jag meets water-filled autoroute tramline, big sideways aquaplane, Hayman loses yet more hair from scalp!'
It's true. XKR 100 in accelerated baldness shock. Hayman took longer to wash his face this morning. Understandably, his feelings are mixed. But the next episode from the Blighty-to-Bologna logbook is just as telling. You'll have read in previous issues that JH is no great BMW fan. 'I just don't 'get' BMWs,' he confirms. 'They're good and all that, but once you get over the undoubted ability thing, it all becomes a bit boring.' M3 boring? Hayman's even harder than I thought.
'Not the case this time,' he admits. 'The more I drove it, the more I liked it. The engine is a peach; so flexible, so fast and with a glorious soundtrack to boot! It's made all the more enjoyable without a tin roof to muffle the exhaust note. Tunnels are nearly as much fun as they are in a Ferrari 360! Braking is faultless, too - pedal feel is spot on. And the numbness of earlier 3-series steering has been addressed, and the six-speed box is really tactile, slick and smooth, and...'
And John is getting carried away. He reaches for a Marlborough Light and recalibrates to his usual 911 benchmark. A succession of fast sweepers on the way down, it seems, had put things into perspective. 'The M3 required constant adjustments,' he recounts. 'It just didn't track through them anything like as solidly as a 911 would have. And, on the twistier stuff, the chassis seemed to be overwhelmed by the grunt and the power of the brakes. Things seemed to get a wee bit tangled up. Perversely I think it's this chassis flaw - possibly a consequence of the more flexible body - that makes the M3 entertaining!'
That and the way the Bavarian beefcake blitzed the autobahns. 'Ask the three 911 drivers I encountered on my long trip,' says JH, taking a perverse relish in dissing the accelerative ability of his favourite car. 'Each one in turn felt obliged to show this aggressive, if not a little tarty- looking BMW filling their rear view mirrors the benefits of 'Porsche power'. Each, in turn, was humbled... Big Time!'
So we're getting a handle on this. The two cars that are known quantities have unloaded their full repertoires on the way here, the Jag trading heavily on its GT roots yet occasionally transcending the shackles of its weight and size to display a new-found litheness and agility, the M3 proving once again that genuine supercar poke hidden behind a four-seater pose-o-matic, soft-top facade is a hoot, even if a little of the tin-top version's remarkable handling acuity is lost in the process. Two markers have been planted inside the boundaries of sports car and GT but, remarkably, there's a chasm between them.
Perhaps the home team will plant one in the middle. While John and Damian were sussing the lie of the land in the Jag and BMW, I was with Maserati in Modena, being told the story behind the Spyder and why, even more than the 3200 GT, it is the car that will truly mark the company's return to form. It was an extremely long story... so long that, in its latter stages, a couple of fellow hacks started a game of hangman on the back of their press-packs. I redesigned the Smart on the back on mine.
The best bits of the Spyder's tale are pretty juicy, though. Mostly it's a hardware thing. Hardware and heritage.
The way Maserati tells it, the Spyder 'blends the pure style of an Italian sports convertible with the world's most advanced technology'. A bold claim in this company. Cast an eye over the separate stories on SL and Spyder to see how Maserati's definition of 'world's most advanced' stacks up against Mercedes'. The long and short of it is this: Spyder is 3200 GT sans roof, 220mm of wheelbase, +2 seats, boomerang LED tail lights and twin-turbo 3.2-litre V8 drivetrain. In goes re-worked 360 lump, weight-evening transaxle and chassis strengthening to compensate for the missing tin top (53:47 weight distribution but a kerb weight 144kg heavier than the coupe's). It's inconsequential; this is an extremely quick car. Maserati claims 176mph and 0-60mph in under 5 seconds.
And even better stoppers than a Porsche 911. Maybe you'd expect nothing less with dinner- plate-sized drilled and vented discs by Brembo all round, but that's one for the 'more famous than Jesus' file.
Harmonising the additions and subtractions fell to the 3200 GT's original design house, Giugiaro's Italdesign. From most angles, it's a great job. Just two provisos: one, the car looks dumpy in pure profile and, two, the replacement tail-light clusters are dead ordinary. The old GT is both more beautiful and distinctive. I'd worked that one out during the factory walkabout.
First impressions in Bologna town square early next morning are - necessarily given the narrow window of opportunity to get all the cars together - just that. Checking out the fully automatic, powered hood (which, unlike the Merc's, doesn't impinge on boot space) will have to wait for the rain that's forecast for the afternoon. It's more tempting to dwell on the plush sensuality of the cabin - an inviting cocoon of soft leathers and finely resolved details, though surprisingly unshapely seats - the vague familiarity of the sat nav system (Alfa 147) and that engine note which, even at idle, is doing things to the small hairs on the back of my neck. All worth savouring.
What I really want to do, though, is nail it. But that will have to wait, too. In the thick morning traffic clogging the roads leading out of Bologna towards the hazy foothills, the Cambiocorsa transmission is shown in its worst light. Seven times out of ten, step-off is marred by the clutch having two goes at making a clear engagement with an unseemly lurch between attempts. In fact, pussyfooting in general is treated with general disapproval by the clutchless transmission. In 'auto', its lack of shift finesse occasionally borders on the breathtaking. Taking control with the paddles behind the steering wheel helps a little, the 'sport' setting trading smoothness (I use the word in a relative sense) for a little extra immediacy. Either way, the effect isn't dissimilar to being chauffeured by an enthusiastic learner.
As the traffic clears, things start to improve. More gas equals snappier shifts; braking deep into bends while downshifting elicits the delicious and perfectly executed rev-blip that the black-box electronics in this type of transmission are so routinely good at. This is more in keeping with the razor-sharp throttle response and the engine's predatorial appetite for revs. Not to mention a weak-willed driver's inability not to let it have them. It only takes a few miles to understand why the Spyder will be adored by some and abhorred by others. If ever a car's character was forged by its engine, this is the one. As drug dealer Lance said to Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction while extolling the virtues of various class-A hits, it's a f-ckin' madman.
Once the animalistic energy of the V8 has you in its thrall - the combination of flesh-distorting push and mechanical purity is core Ferrari and hugely addictive - you can almost forgive the rest of the car its shortcomings. Almost. As I spear onto the mostly empty mountain roads at a lick a 360 itself wouldn't be ashamed of, they come so thick and fast it feels as if I'm under attack from a mad professor holed up in the bushes setting off various on-board booby traps by remote control.
Pedal to the floor, gearshifts progress from being merely jerky or overly slurred to full-on Millbrook: fast but violent enough to send a shudder through the body structure. This, to the Spyder's credit, seems reasonably rigid. Which makes it all the more disconcerting when the steering column wobbles every time the front wheels hit a bump or trough. And the faster I go, the lighter and more utterly devoid of feel the helm becomes; exactly the effect you don't need given the thrilling directness of its turn-in. John Hayman will later compare the steering's communicative abilities to those of a Fiat Punto's in 'girlie button' City mode. And its surprisingly generous body-lean to that of a Renault Laguna. He's as dismayed and perplexed by the car as I am. Yet neither of us minds leaping in and disappearing into the hills in a plume of tyre smoke.
It's as if we can't help ourselves, despite having proved, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that the M3 (for once beaten for outright pace and mechanical charisma) fits the keenest driver's intentions like a glove. It's also clear the XKR retains its composure and damping precision far better when the going gets tough, confounding Maserati's claim that the Spyder's Skyhook adaptive damping - said to react ten times faster than conventional adaptive systems like the Jag's - confers any real advantage on the road. On one particularly ravaged section of tarmac, it's the Maserati, with its long front overhang and forward-mounted engine, that bashes its snout on the deck. The M3 and XKR check the spring and damper compression with a shrug but no physical contact.
And when we drive the same leg one final time, the Merc doesn't even notice. Gus and the SL glide up to 'The Rock' - photo HQ - with the serene arrogance of a former champ that's had a by through to the final. Having driven the fifth generation on the 'long-lead' launch in Germany a couple of weeks earlier, I reckon I know what to expect.
Rocket science. A level of all-round ability undreamt of by the designers of the others. Sublime superiority. It's hard to call it any other way. The styling, by Brit Stephen Mattin, is scintillating. But it's the unique package of high-performance electronic control systems fitted as standard - 'by-wire' Sensotronic Brake Control (SBC) that works in conjunction with ESP and roll-minimising Active Body Control (ABC) - that's significant. So significant it could change the course of automotive development.
Then there's the second-generation Vario roof, which comprehensively outdoes the first (SLK) by transforming the SL from hard-top to no-top in a barely believable 17 seconds. The roof, which actually accentuates the SL's graceful wedge attitude, folds into the boot more efficiently than before by spinning the rear window through 180 degrees so that it tucks neatly inside the main roof panel as it concertinas away. A crowd-pleaser worthy of applause. As with the SLK, there's a penalty to pay in boot space but, because of the SL's size, it's less of an issue. And besides, pressing a little red button on the side of the boot sill tilts the entire stowed roof upwards for easier access to the luggage space below.
A nicety? The SL redefines the concept. There are so many thoughtful touches and grown-up gizmos - the buttock-massaging seat cushion quickly installs itself as my favourite - it would be easy to overlook the greater achievements: close to perfect driving position, instruments and switchgear ergonomics, arguably the most comfortable and supportive seats ever fitted to a road car, a magical absence of buffeting with the roof down at 120mph on the autobahn, S-class levels of hush and smoothness.
But it's as a demanding-road driving experience that the SL promises to drop jaws. I've got some more miles to do in the M3 (front runner at this point) and let John have first go. We return to base at about the same time but our moods are distinctly different. I'm sweaty palmed but chuckling, John looks as if he's seen a ghost, which probably means his gob has been smacked. I offer 1000 lire for his thoughts.
'Nitpicking...' he mumbles. 'The gearshift is set at least four inches too far back, the cigarette lighter can't be accessed when the shift lever is in Park. I'm struggling to find something to criticise! I could say the V8 lacks oomph, but that would be lying because it doesn't. It's just disguised by the finesse of the package as a whole. The SL is fast, very fast. Fast in the way it handles and delivers its power with total disdain of everything and anything.
'Attack a corner and it goes around it. Press the middle pedal as hard as you like and with no ABS kickback at all it just stops. It convinces you, with all its cleverness, that you are a brilliant driver. But actually the SL is the driver, you're just the optional navigational aid!
'Yes, it's by far the fastest ground-coverer of the group in all and any conditions. Yes, its composure over any road of any surface is astounding. Yes, the cabin is superbly laid out. Yes, the SL does give tactile feedback from all the right places. Yes, the SL wins... it has to! Nothing in the group comes close to this car's all round ability.'
But still John looks a little troubled. I know what's on his mind but the poor bloke can hardly bring himself to say it. It's the 'evoness' thing - as in lack of.
I'd had much the same reaction in Germany but here, on these roads, the SL should really come into its own. I head for the twisty, rough stuff and quickly find myself feeding out the performance as I need it. The Merc might not be anything like as quick as the Maserati, but there always seems more to come. Nail the lot and the shove develops a relentless weight and urgency as the engine note hardens to a wonderfully subtle, rorty howl.
With smaller throttle openings, the smoothness and refinement are deeply impressive. The effortlessly buoyant way the 5-litre, 24-valve V8 and beautifully-spaced ratios work together to provide a seamless surge of power from walking pace to three figures is remarkable. It's the access to this kind of velvety, linear thrust that never fails to catch your breath.
I head down the valley. As the road's swerves, lumps and bumps worsen in severity, the more composed and unfazable the Merc's manners seem to become. The body structure feels fabulously stiff for something without a roof and the super-trick suspension works its magic silently. Not even the harshest sections breach its ability to soak up punishment and keep the cabin disturbance-free.
The harder I drive the SL, the more my attention is drawn to the extraordinary grip and the chassis' supremely fluent, fussless way of stringing together combinations of bends. It carries amazing speed from entry to exit with almost zero roll and a flat, smooth ride. Its contempt of camber and road surface are patently ridiculous. It steers with amazing precision and seems to have reserves of grip that defy science.
I return in much the same state as John. Awestruck but, at the same time, a little disengaged. I know for certain that I've just driven the most accomplished two-seater on the planet. A car with manners as exquisite as its styling. A towering technological benchmark that will set standards for years to come. A car that makes Maserati's boasts for 'advanced technology' look frankly preposterous.
You think I'm going to give it to the M3, don't you? Tempting. It's the best value and the most fun, but cars as good as the SL are rarer. In fact, there's never been one. The SL55 AMG will have all the evoness you can handle. Meanwhile, this really is as good as it gets.
