If you’re going to ditch the manual ’box, you need a good paddleshift. With its new DSG, Ferrari has a winner

You can see it from several kilometres away and it seems to metamorphose constantly as it moves across the wild landscape. Rain. It’s being blown in from the Atlantic. I’m in the 670-4 – a good place to start any day once you’ve remembered its propensity to understeer doggedly on cold tyres – and behind me is a convoy of four others all being treated to God’s own automotive soundtrack. We’ve just crested a rise on the western fork of the island and through the low, deep windscreen is a view that not even a front row seat in a 3D cinema could do justice to. It is a fantastic day, bright and with a stiff breeze, and I can see at least three different weather systems stacked up between us and the horizon. Sunlight is scudding across the heather and rocks to my right while, out on the water, dark patches are seeping over the silvery surface as the clouds overhead herald the arrival of the next soaking. It seems to give the incredible scenery a permanent just-washed freshness.

I pull into the next layby so that the five of us can swap cars before the first band of rain arrives. We’re on a reconnaissance mission round the island, some of us reacquainting ourselves with the roads, others being introduced for the first time. ‘It’s like Wales turned up to 13,’ says Barker as he hops from the Balboni to the SV. I’m making a beeline for the California as Tomalin heads for the Evora, while in their confusion Hayman and Eveleigh both head for the Artega.

I had the pleasure of driving up to Dumbarton on Sunday in the Ferrari. It was a lovely place to spend a long drive with no hint that its roof will collapse into the boot on request. I’m not sure about the sort of inside-out colour scheme of this particular car, but the brown interior is very roomy. In fact it almost feels slightly oversize with the enormous rev-counter, bigger steering wheel and dash all set quite high. There are a couple of very big badges in here too, possibly to remind you exactly which Modenese company’s car you’re driving…

‘We decide to take the single-track B885, not an obvious route for a group including two lorry-wide Lambos…’

If you’re going to ditch the manual gearbox for good then you need a good paddleshift system to replace it, and with its new DSG ’box Ferrari has a winner. The upchanges feel as comically fast as in the Scuderia, but they’re now backed-up with a greater feeling of mechanical solidity. Switch the wheel-mounted mannetino to Sport, leave the ’box in auto mode and the onboard computers do an uncannily good job of shifting the gears just when you want, banging in rapid-fire downshifts as you work the big carbon brake discs. As with a lot of modern Ferraris, the steering is very light but terrifically accurate, giving the initial sense that the California is dancing on its feet more nimbly than the kerb weight would suggest it could.

The slightly torque-lite V8 makes a lot of noise (especially when you start it up) but it isn’t one of Maranello’s most musical creations, offering more of a bass-heavy blare than the usual spine-tingling crescendo. As we hug the coast down from Dunvegan, the Ferrari starts to show its weight a little more too. It is a fine car when left to go at its natural and still very quick pace, but when you’ve got two Lamborghinis up your exhaust pipes you feel a certain pressure to push beyond comfort zones. There’s a bit of roll, which is actually nicely judged and allows you to set the car up through corners, leaning on the tyres and working the huge traction. The problem comes if you hit a mid-corner bump, as the suspension you’re leaning on seems to have little left to deal with it and the weight then starts to tell.

‘The most remarkable thing about the GT3 is that it shines not on the big roads but the smaller ones’

We’re at the southern end of our loop when we next stop and as we park up outside the Sligachan hotel I’m less enamoured of the California than I was after my long journey up here on the motorway on Sunday. It does lots very well, but as an enthusiast’s car you get out at the end of a proper drive feeling a little short-changed of the full Ferrari experience.

Skye, on the other hand, is definitely providing us with the full experience, the magnificent serrated ridge of the Black Cuillins dominating the view. We need to head back to the others on the north of the island however and instead of retracing our tyre-tracks treadblock for treadblock we decide to take the single-track B885. It’s not an obvious route for a group including two truck-wide Lambos and a Ferrari, so I make a run for the slim-waisted Artega…

It’s a very good-looking car, the GT, very compact. Inside it’s a bit too compact, though, as the driving position forces your feet an uncomfortably long way to the left, rather like a Ferrari 250 LM (if you happen to have driven one of those recently). There’s some interesting bamboo or possibly varnished balsa trim on the dashboard but most of the rest is fairly recognisable from the VAG parts bin and none the worse for that.

Barker decides to lead as he made a sprint for the only other suitable car, the Evora. It’s an undeniably interesting comparison between the two mid-engined V6 rivals. The Artega certainly feels the more initially sporty of the two, turning in sharply and almost edgily where the Lotus feels more GT-like. The VW six is more exciting than the Toyota one too, punching harder with every stab of the throttle and sounding a lot more melodiously aggressive.

What we are driving along is a road in its most basic form, a single lane of tarmac with no kerbs, no markings and no warning signs about where it’s going. A drunk on a unicycle could probably have plotted a more direct route across the moor – it’s fabulous. John’s not hanging around but the Artega feels quite happy following in the Lotus’s wheeltracks as we duck and dive. The ride is much shorter of travel than in the Lotus but still very well judged and there is a beautiful accuracy to the steering that allows me to make the most of the narrow confines. Unfortunately the wheel itself is a bit of an ergonomic disaster as it digs into your hand just where you hook your thumbs over. For some reason the DSG doesn’t seem as snappy as in the Scirocco either.

‘In the Clio, you just commit with all the speed you can. As a bonus, the handbrake’s perfect for hairpins’

As we enter a more wooded section the road plummets down in a series of steep steps like one of those huge slides at a water park. Then about five minutes later we’re deposited back onto the wide main road to Uig and I can almost hear the collective sigh as Peter, Ev and John Hayman behind all breathe out. Curiously, on the wider, faster sweeps as we head north again I find I trust the Artega a little less. All that short- wheelbase grip feels very low down, while the weight of the engine behind feels relatively high up. As Roger Green says to me later, ‘it’s not a car I’d want to enter into a drifting competition’.

We find the others up at the Quirang, among the Trotternish (I’m not making these up, honestly) and I can’t help feeling I should beware the Jabberwock. Sure enough, there’s evo art director Paul Lang up on a high peak directing cars for the group photo. It’s a complex process, but after a while photographer Stuart Collins is satisfied, packs his tripod away and the fun can continue. Or it can after lunch, which Tomalin and I decide to go and forage for in Portree. There’s yet another stretch of road to explore on the way there and the MX-5 and Clio seem perfect for the job.

It seems a long time since we brought the Mazda’s immediate predecessor to Scotland two years ago. That car was one of the worst we’ve ever taken on an eCoty but, with the latest iteration, Mazda is back on message. Roof down, sea to my left, epic scenery to my right, heated seat set to scald, and clean Scottish air ruffling the sideburns, it’s pretty easy to feel good about life when driving the MX-5. The first part of the road is not really playing to the MX-5’s strengths, being too wide and fast for the little 158bhp four-cylinder. Having said that, the engine isn’t one that really encourages you to rev it anyway, which is a shame as it’s certainly no chore snapping through the six-speed gearbox’s tight gate.

After about ten kilometres the road changes to smoother blacktop but also narrows to single-track. Here the little roadster fits much better but strangely it’s still missing a bit of spark. The basics are all there now, with good steering and a vastly better suspension set-up, so that the whole car reacts neatly and faithfully. It’s just that it lacks a bit of engagement and you can’t make it move quite as sweetly as a Mk1 or 2.

Bizarrely, the little fella might actually be more fun if it had slightly less grip. This top-of-the-range Sport model has 45-profile Bridgestones that you feel nicely secure cornering on, but the chassis is really crying out to be let free. As Barker says, ‘the progression and smoothness of the taller Yokohamas on the non-Sport car would have given it a more E30 M3, momentum-preserving vibe, which would have allowed the front-engine/rear-drive balance to shine’.

Tomalin and I find some freshly caught scallops to lunch on in a delightful little place before remembering the rest of the team and gathering up some reduced sausage rolls in a petrol station. Peter was in the Clio on the way here so I decide to switch to that for the journey back and take the now-well-worn road past the hotel and over the top of the Quirang. They may both have 2-litre engines but the Renault’s feels in a completely different league to the MX-5’s. It’s as zingy as its yellow rev-counter suggests and seems to continually egg you on to hold each gear until the change-up beep sounds and then tear through the change.

Although the fast roads shouldn’t be the Clio’s forté any more than the Mazda’s, the security of front-wheel drive means that you treat the bends with complete disdain and never lift. The tail is more nailed down than ever in this generation of Clio so you don’t worry about treading carefully, you just commit with all the speed you can, safe in the knowledge that a slight miscalculation will simply result in a bit of speed being safely scrubbed off as you push the tyres.

It’s as we turn on to the narrow stuff again that the 200 really starts to prove its magic though. If you’re going to drive really quickly on this sort of road you need two things: 1. To know exactly where each of the four corners of the car are, and 2. There has to be no pause whatsoever between inputs and reactions. The Clio excels. The steering is super-direct, there’s no roll in the chassis, and the grip, particularly in direction changes, is sparkling. It allows you to slice down a road with all the precision and certainty of a well-choreographed cinematic sword fight. As an added bonus, the handbrake is perfect for the hairpins (I know, I know, I need to get back in a rally car and stop abusing Clios).

Back in the car park I manage to tempt Harris (who’s been relentlessly beating everyone over the head with a ‘GT3 must win’ stick) away from the Porsche. He hears the dry spinning of the flat-six as it comes to life too late, and I make good my getaway. There’s barely any fuel in it, forcing me to make the round trip to Portree again. What a shame….

The most remarkable thing about the next hour is that the GT3 shines brightest not on the big road, but the small one, the one where the Clio shone. It says incredible things for both cars that you can compare them both favourably. You’d never expect a 430bhp 911 to be able to jink and pick its way along the single-track stuff as neatly as a hot hatch, but it does, just with a lot more speed when it’s possible to get on the throttle. It’s a drive every bit as memorable as the one in the Balboni the day before, and when I get back to the car park, grinning from ear to ear, I grab Vivian to tell him about it. He, in his inimitably mercurial way, sums it up far better than I could: ‘The GT3 has so much mechanical feel that not only do you know precisely what it’s doing, but you know just a fraction of a second before it does it. That communication loop, the way it resolves information, is just peerless.’

There is plenty that is intriguing about the group we’ve assembled for this year’s competition, but nothing more so than the in-fight between the two raging bulls. So next I jump into the SV to see how it stacks up against the VB. I was probably pushing my luck in the GT3 on the single-track stuff and I’m certain that 335-section rear tyres will be a step too far so I head back to bigger roads. Unfortunately there is about a kilometre of the narrow stuff to negotiate first, but after half a kilometre I’m wondering whether I shouldn’t give the tangerine monster a run over the Clio road. Although the steering is heavy and requires more wrist and forearm strength than any other car here, the SV has a precision that is phenomenal for its size. Combined with a seating position that seems to place you almost directly between the front wheels, it allows you to place it amazingly easily. I now understand a little better Hayman’s pace the evening before.

The tall first gear is all you need on the small stuff, but as soon as the road opens out you get to experience the SV’s greatest asset in all its glory. The huge V12 seems to have an endless reach and get ever more passionately manic as it rushes for 8000rpm and its full 661bhp. The gearbox is still not the most sophisticated paddleshift but, unlike the one in the Zonda Cinque I drove last month, it will allow you to work with it by feathering the throttle at the appropriate moment, which is quite satisfying. The small steering wheel, its Alcantara rim smooth after being grasped very tightly by lots of white-knuckled hands, might be heavy to turn but it is laden with feel from the front tyres. Combine this with the security blanket of four-wheel drive and you feel encouraged to attack corners.

When you do, however, the chassis balance feels like it’s been set up by Fernando Alonso with extra steering input required and quite a bit of understeer that you need to push through. Once you know about it, it’s not actually unpleasant and having had the big tail snap loose while travelling at speed, I can appreciate why most owners will happily take the slightly scrubby way of attacking a corner.

After 20 minutes I turn round and head back to our temporary car park. On one straight I see the Balboni coming the other way and we head towards each other like jousters either side of our cats-eye rail. As we pass at a slightly unholy combined speed, I have a feeling the heavier- hitting SV would win the battle. It is an epic machine, the full, big-wing, grand-scale supercar experience, yet it also manages to feel more organic than the Balboni.

‘Boost builds progressively. The Noble can be just as scary or docile as you want it to be’

An hour later we, or rather Rutter and Collins, are starting to run out of light. So we all decide that it’s time to head back to Uig via the petrol station in Portree. I have one of those slightly disappointing drives in the Focus on the way there and then swap into the Aston. Moving off the forecourt (slightly indistinct biting point on the clutch) to free up space for others to get to the pumps, I notice that John Barker is behind me in the Noble. The next fifteen minutes are just fantastic.

The Aston is a hugely fast car but I know that it has to give everything if it’s going to keep the Noble even vaguely honest. Slow corners don’t feature heavily between the petrol station and the hotel in Uig and the Aston doesn’t quite have the glued-to-the-road feeling that its aggressive rubber might suggest, so you find yourself teasing and testing the grip constantly, coaxing the heavy nose into and through the bends. I catch myself holding my breath through the long sweeping corners, particularly the patchily damp ones.

Eventually we reach the 60kph limit just before the hotel and I can draw breath. I really love the Aston and of all the cars here I think it is the one I’d get most pleasure from living with for a year. John parks up next to me. He gets out, leaving the turbocharged Noble idling. ‘The M600 feels like a rocket, especially with the dial turned to the full 650bhp. It’s just a maelstrom of chuffs, hisses and chatters in there, with the whole world – and you in a wrung-out Aston – reversing towards me!’ I need to have a go.

Three minutes later, I’m thinking that Skye might not be big enough for the Noble. It is in fact wonderfully driveable with a long throttle travel and progressively building boost so that it can be just as scary or docile as you want it to be. But turn the wick up to 550bhp or all the way to 650bhp and then hold the accelerator as wide as you dare (it genuinely doesn’t matter what gear but I suggest fourth or above to save your undercrackers) and you will be treated to the kind of experience that haunts you in the back of your eyelids every time you close your eyes for days and weeks afterwards.

Straights that I thought were a really good leg-stretch in the GT3 and Balboni suddenly feel uncomfortably short just a few moments after you’ve got on the throttle in the Noble. No question it’s Veyron quick, only with the added sharpeners of being rear-wheel drive and its traction control still being under development (the person who eventually sorts it out will deserve some sort of peace prize).

What is also very unnerving is that the first time you go to the brakes for a bit of comfort you find a pedal that’s hard and in need of an alarmingly large amount of heft from your right leg before the madness stops rushing towards you. It is in fact full of feel and fantastically progressive once you get into the meat of it, but a little bit of reassuring servo assistance at the top of the travel wouldn’t go amiss. Once you’ve stopped merely yo-yoing up to warp speed and back down again, however, you start to appreciate the rest of the Noble. You realise that it’s soaking up the road’s imperfections yet transferring messages about them back through the steering wheel in a way that would have Lotus engineers nodding approval. And it’s not often these days that a claim of 1200kg feels conservative, but it does with the M600 (one of the reasons the acceleration feels so mind-altering when the boost hits). The steering wheel could do with being a little closer to the driver and some of the interior still needs polishing, but you honestly couldn’t care less about that when you’re hurtling along at the centre of the storm.

By the time I’ve finished with the Noble it’s needed for the cover shot on Uig harbour. And whilst that’s coming together, my fellow judges and I need to decide which five cars go through to the final-day shootout. When the scores are totted up, the Artega is the first to miss the cut, though it goes back to Germany with its head held high – this is one of the highest scoring eCotys ever and just one point covers the bottom four. The GT has been let down by two things: firstly, the fact that the electrics are playing up, and secondly, because there’s another car here that does similar things even better…

Next on the chopping block is the other car with a VW DSG ’box – the Scirocco R. It’s a brilliantly executed car but it lacks soul. And then the MX-5. That the Mazda feels outgunned and overawed on the big roads was to be expected, but the fact it never quite comes alive on the twistier stuff wasn’t. Blame the wrong spec perhaps, but the MX-5 never moved us with quite the subtlety and sweetness of the best of its predecessors.

Still just one percentage point ahead of the Artega is the Ferrari California. It’s a great car for a long journey and we know it can do the figures it claims, but it doesn’t sparkle as we know Ferraris can on roads like these. Perhaps it was unfair to expect it to, but I think it was right to offer it the opportunity.

Jaguar should be very proud of the XFR. Somehow the gloriously fast saloon has managed to mix it with supercars and not feel awkwardly out of place. It manages to be hugely entertaining on a narrow country road yet not forget its main purpose in life when you want to waft up the multi-lane motorway. ‘Probably the most accomplished, polished contender of all,’ says Vivian. One place above it is a car to which you couldn’t apply the term polished. Harris loved the Focus RS but most of us nodded our heads when Vivian said ‘it feels a bit unnatural and it doesn’t flow like the Clio. You kind of bludgeon the road into submission’.

And so we come to the point where we put a blindfold on John Simister, march him out to a post at dawn and pelt him with over-ripe fruit. The V12 Vantage is the best Aston for many a year. Brimming with character, huge pace and looks that just get better and better, many of us wanted the Vantage in the top five. Simi didn’t though and torpedoed it by putting it eleventh.

‘The RS doesn’t flow like the Clio. You bludgeon the road into submission’

Several people had the Balboni in their top five as well, but it was always fighting the enemy within. The Gallardo sounded fabulous but the SV sounded more fabulous. The Gallardo looked sensational but the SV looked more sensational. Roger Green observed that ‘The two Lambos are so different, you even put the seatbelt on from opposite sides.’ Light steering plays heavy, rear-wheel drive plays four-wheel drive, conventional doors play scissor doors… I could go on. We love the Balboni and the conversion to rear-wheel drive is fantastic, but by the time we hit the sack we know that it won’t be one of the final five heading off in the morning…