GREAT DEAL: TEAM PC TOP TRUMPS What would we all bring to the table?
Wolseley 6/80
Tech guru: Theo Gillam
1970 Monteverdi Hai
Not having sat cross-legged on a playground for 40 years, I’m surprised to find my Top Trump-gland still throbs for the Monteverdi Hai, so I’ll be palming those 450 gee gees, thank you very much.
As sure to annihilate any hand in the way a Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird would see off a Cessna, this Swiss supercar is almost as lithe and brutal, kicked up the backside by 6974ccs of V8 gristle, wrapped in a kinky, figurehugging body stocking. Like 14 year-old me, 54 year-old me can still but dream…
Tech ed: Sam Glover 1959 Citroën Bijou
A 425cc flat-twin and a pretty but weighty glassfibre body blessed Slough’s own Gallic sports car with amazing performance.
Its throbbing 12bhp, 17.4lb ft of torque and 603.8kg kerb weight gave a power-toweight ratio of 19.9bhp per ton and a top speed of 50.5mph. Most impressive of all, though, was its 0-40mph time of 31.3 seconds.
The uglier and much less comfortable Ferrari 250 GTO reached the same speed in a pathetic 4.1 seconds.
Thus the Citroën wins.
Contributor: Richard Bremner
1971 Cadillac Fleetwood Eldorado
A V8 of no less than 8195cc was installed in the ’71 Eldorado coupe was. This
8.2 litre monster the largest engine fitted to a post-wwii production car. Still more amazingly, the Eldorado was front-wheel drive, a two-door coupe and 5700mm long. It weighed 2190kg, its 535 lb ft of torque even more impressive than its 365bhp, these outputs sufficient to float it to 60mph in 9.7sec, a gallon of fuel snorted every 11 miles.
Road tester: John Simister
1966 Oldsmobile Toronado
This was the world’s biggest-engined, most powerful front-wheel drive car, with 385bhp from its 7-litre V8. The Olds also offered the biggest doors of any two-door coupé, and the highest handle-to-door ratio with extra handles for rear passengers. No other car with as much power took as far to stop from high speed, too. Top this off with a truly magnificent 8mpg fuel thirst, and it’s a surefire winner.
Contributor: Nigel Boothman
1964 Cadillac Series 75 limousine
I’ll win on length (the far side of 20ft), weight (2 ¼ tons), engine capacity (7025cc) and thirst
(12mpg, max) if that’s part of the contest. You can get seven or eight friends in it at once, plus a Beaulieu’s worth of tents and beer in the boot. Sorry, trunk. Spares are easy to source from the USA and the only tough part about owning one is finding suitable storage. And all those trips to the petrol pump.
PC columnist: Nick Larkin
What a hand to deal – a fascinating mixture of Hispano Suisa derived overhead cam engine, ridiculous over engineering, and Morris Minor bred with imposing looks and wondrous gear whine to savour from an interior of leather, wood and cream dials. All this is a passport to a warm and fuzzy World of Wolseley, where trilby hatted detectives piled into a 6/80 to grab villains Victorian warehouses. I won’t win, but I’ll be happy.
Art director: Lisamarie Johnson
1985 Lamborghini Countach LP5000S QV
I played Top Trumps with my brother as a child. I don’t remember an awful lot about the game itself, but I do remember one car that always used to win – this – the Lamborghini Countach. It looked cool as anything and you knew, when you had it in your hand, that you would win on speed and probably acceleration, too. It was a winner and bit of a fantasy card as well. When you had it you could think to yourself, ‘one day, I’ll have one.’
Classic Cars magazine’s: Sam Dawson Cizeta V16T
I see your puny 12 cylinders and I raise you 16. In an era when the fastest supercars packed twin-boosted engines with a capacity of three litres, the V16T had six. It topped even the Ferrari F40 by a couple of mph and, to cover itself even further in the silly stakes, it also added four pop-up headlights. It’s what happens if Lamborghini says that your car is too mad to productionise, so you ask a pop star for some money and build it anyway.
Land Rover Owner magazine’s: Martin Domoney Range Rover LSE
There isn’t another vehicle on the planet that combines handsome looks and luxury as seamlessly with off-road prowess as the Range Rover LSE. The timeless styling is graceful for such a large car, and the creamy 4.2-litre Rover V8 that lurks beneath the clamshell bonnet whisks occupants along in leathertrimmed oppulence to a lusty eight-cylinder soundtrack. And it’s just as at home outside the Ritz as it is up to its axles in mud.