A vocal band of happy owners means the S2000 always does well, taking the overall Top 100 victory in 2005 and ’06. While it’s slipped out of the leading 10, superb quality tops off its white-knuckle thrills and sensible running costs. The easygoing charms of Audi’s TT scooped the silver medal. With its more manageable running costs, it edged ahead of Porsche’s 911, whose thrills can’t quite outweigh the big bills. Two Mazdas make up the rest of the top five. Despite the MX-5’s two-seat layout leading to some practicality gripes, it never fails to raise a smile. That’s helped it to leapfrog its big brother RX-8, which is another sports model with spiralling running costs.