ESSENTIALS Volkswagen Golf R32 Price (new): £22,340 Powertrain: 3.2-litre V6, 238bhp 0-62mph: 6.6 seconds Top speed: 153mph Fuel Consumption: 24.4mpg Annual VED: £430 Alfa Romeo 147 GTA Price (new): £

We were spoiled for choice when it came to outlandish performance that was genuinely attainable back in the Nineties, as this super sextet of buys proves

RATINGS = Thrill-free zone = Tepid = Interesting = Seriously good = A truly great car = new entry this month. Cars in italics are no longer on sale. Issue no. is for our most recent major test of the

List price £65,045 Best price £59,645 MPG 30.8 CO2 208g/km For Savage acceleration; immense grip; entertaining handling; quick-shifting automatic gearbox Against Very expensive to buy; some hot hatche

Nobody does a five-cylinder quite like Audi. Or should that be nobody did a five-cylinder quite like Audi? Fiat, Mercedes-Benz, Alfa Romeo and others have dabbled, and Volvo was a past master, but now

By Russell Hayes, £38, quarto.com , ISBN 978 ...