Jeremy Clarkson - What Could Possibly Go Wrong...

And yet, if I were in the market for such a car, I’d buy neither. I’d buy the Lamborghini Gallardo LP570-4 Spyder Performante.

Let me talk you through the name. LP says that the V10 engine is longitudinally positioned in the car; 570 is the metric horsepower that Lamborghini claims it delivers – it’s equivalent to 562 bhp. The -4 signifies that it has four-wheel drive. Spyder tells us that it’s a convertible, and Performante that it’s the performance version of something that’s pretty damn fast in the first place.

The extra oomph comes mainly from a raft of weight-saving measures. Carbon fibre, for instance, is used to make the huge engine cover, the door panels, the seats and even the bits that shroud the door mirrors. It sounds, then, like this is another example of science and maths. But it isn’t.

Ferrari and McLaren, first of all, are racing teams and Lamborghini isn’t. Lamborghini therefore feels no need to give its customers a taste of Formula One, a taste of all that behind-the-scenes trickery. Lambos are designed mainly to make a lot of noise and cause small boys to clutch at their private parts in excitement.

So, while the Ferrari howls and a McLaren hums, the Lambo bellows. And while the racers were styled by aerodynamicists, the Lambo was designed to make people say, ‘Wow!’ Which it does.

What’s more, with most serious supercars, you would never buy a convertible version, because you’d know it wasn’t quite as good, dynamically, as the stiffer, more rigid hard top. But since you don’t buy a Lambo for the last 0.01 of a g it can generate in the bends, who cares? Best to have no roof, really. That way you can hear the engine more clearly more of the time.

And anyway, it’s not like the Performante dawdles. The acceleration is savage, the braking is fierce enough to tear off your face and, unlike most four-wheel-drive cars, it does not resort to chronic understeer when you exceed the limit. Plant your foot into the carpet mid-bend and it’s the tail that lets go in an almost cartoonish fog of tyre smoke and noise. In a Ferrari or a McLaren, you concentrate when you are driving quickly. In the Gallardo, you can’t. You’re too busy laughing.

Oh, and there’s one more important point. Ferrari recently started to offer a seven-year warranty, which suggests that it has great faith in the quality. But in the past few years, since Audi took over the factory, I’ve never experienced any mechanical malfunction at all in a Lambo.

Go on. Buy one. You may think it’s a stupid idea now, but trust me on this. On your deathbed, you’ll remember a drive you took in it. And you’ll go through the Pearly Gates smiling.

Back in 1995, Ford toured the world, showing off an exciting new concept car – a small two-seat roadster that was made from carbon fibre. Yum, yum, we all thought. We shall be very interested in buying that should the bigwigs in Detroit decide to put it into production.

Sadly, though, by the time it reached the showrooms, it had sprouted a roof, a hatchback and acres of pleblon upholstery. Furthermore, it was made from steel instead of carbon fibre and it looked like a teapot. It was called the Ka.

Ten years later Ford did it again, showing us a fantastic-looking concept called Iosis. It said at the time that the next version of the Mondeo would look very similar. And it did, except for every single detail.

This is the trouble with concept cars. They do not have to adhere to pesky EU rules about how high the headlamps must be from the ground and how much of the tyres’ width must be covered by bodywork. They don’t have to be crash-tested, and neither does every single piece have to pass through the company’s accounts department. They are freestyle cars. Flights of fancy.

They don’t even have to work. Many years ago Peugeot turned up at the British motor show with a concept car that looked like a cross between an America’s Cup catamaran, the glider Pierce Brosnan used in the remake of The Thomas Crown Affair and a sex toy. However, on the downside, it didn’t have an engine. It didn’t even have a space where an engine could go.

In recent times concept cars have started to look a bit more like the cars you and I do buy. But even so, all of the little details – the fat tyres and the funky lighting and the weird door handles – are still rejected by the bean counters for being too expensive, or by the production line manager for being too complex to fit. This means the car that finally makes it to the showroom never looks quite as good as the car that appeared under a sea of girly flesh at a motor show. Concept cars, then, are the font of disappointment.

By far the worst offender in this is Jaguar. Almost without exception, every one of its new cars in recent times has been a shoulder-sagging visual let-down because, just before it was unveiled, the company had produced a concept to show how brilliant it could have looked if only there were no rules. In short, Jag’s designers have spent the past twenty years writing cheques that the rest of the company cannot cash.

However, a couple of weeks ago Jaguar unveiled a concept car called the C-X16, and if you examine it very carefully you will see that there are no details that are obviously impossible to mass-produce. Maybe the sideways-opening rear window will have to go because of some obscure bit of legislation from Brussels, but other than that, it looks real. It looks possible. And, more than that, it looks absolutely sensational.

It is quite similar in appearance to both the Jaguar XK and the Aston Martin V8, which is perhaps unsurprising since all three were styled by the same man. But it’s smaller than both of those, and cheaper, too. They’re talking about a price tag in the region of £55,000. For that, you would get a supercharged V6 engine, which would then be boosted further by a Formula One-style KERS, or kinetic energy recovery system. Engage this by pushing a little button on the steering wheel and the 375 horsepower coming at you from the petrol engine would be increased momentarily by 94 more from an electric motor. Will that be a showroom feature? Who knows? Price Waterhouse Coopers, probably.

I’ll be honest. I’m very excited about this car and especially the convertible version that’s bound to follow. There’s just one request, and I’m directing this at Jag’s chassis people, who have been a bit hardcore of late. While it is very important to keep the oversteer-crazed helmsmen at Autocar happy, can I please remind you that most of the people who’ll want to buy this car will be middle-aged with bad backs? They will want, therefore, a decent ride. This has to be your priority.

Anyway, that’s then, this is now and we have a new Jaguar XF to think about. Recently, when reviewing the new Audi A6, I said the Jag was not as good for a number of reasons. And then, in a shoddy piece of journalism, didn’t go on to say what they were. Truth is, I couldn’t remember. It’s just that the XF is a bit like Cheryl Cole. I recognize that she blows up many frocks, but I don’t see what the fuss is about, frankly.

Now, however, there’s a revamped model. It has a restyled bonnet and tweaked front end and new gills in the front wings. It looks fine, but outside a red carpet event it doesn’t look quite as fine as the BMW 5-series or the Audi A6. Somehow they look more modern and more expensive.

It’s the same story on the inside. I like the minimalism Jaguar’s designers tried to achieve, but it would have been better if they’d succeeded. I’m loath to say this, but it all looks a bit cheap. The headlamp switch, for instance, is on the indicator stalk. There’s only one reason to put it there: to save money. That’s why Mercedes and BMW don’t. Because they know we know.