Best luxury sports cars

The days of stripped-out, ultra-lightweight sports cars are largely over, so beyond a few more affordable models (the Mazda MX-5, for example), high-performance, high-cost sports cars do tend to be luxurious. Even the sharpest, most engaging driving machines have cabins bedecked in leather (and carbon fibre) and large touchscreen displays with Apple CarPlay. What adds luxury to a sports car experience is the sense of refinement and comfort that allows you to cross a continent in an afternoon, but still has the sort of thrilling driving experience you want when the roads become twistier.

Our pick is the Porsche Taycan, which has all the straight-line performance and cornering prowess you could want, but comes with a clear conscience, safe in the knowledge that its battery power is contributing to lower CO2 emissions. And despite being a technological powerhouse, it can still stir the emotions, in much the same way that a 911 does. If, on the other hand, you still pine for the aural thrills of a ‘proper’ engine, you might want to consider Porsche’s Panamera, BMW’s M8 Gran Coupe, or the frankly insane Mercedes-AMG GT Four Door.

OK, so this is subtly different to the previous question, because sports cars sometimes have four seats but just the two doors. Which means the answer pretty much has to be the Bentley Continental GT: it has all of the performance and poise of two-seater rivals, but with actual space for real people in the back.

When you line up the likes of the BMW M8 Competition and the Aston Martin DBS, you’d think that the competition would be close. But the clear winner is the 650hp Porsche 911 Turbo S, which launches to 62mph from a standing start in just 2.7secs.

When you’re paying six figures for a new car, you’d hope that the high quality of engineering would make it fairly reliable. That’s not always the case, though. That said, there’s once again a clear winner – and it’s the Porsche 911 again, which US reliability experts JD Power have named as the best and most reliable car in its class. Next in line is probably the Lexus LC, with the Japanese marque consistently topping the JD Power surveys as most reliable brand.

If, by best value, you mean the cheapest, the answer is easy: the Ford Mustang Mach 1 offers 460hp performance and 4.8secs 0-62mph for £57,075. It’s highly debatable, of course, that the Mach 1 should be categorised alongside the likes of the Bentley Continental GT, so let’s consider value, rather than mere price. One car in the category that offers staggering performance, practicality, style, and quality for less than some others is the Porsche 911 Turbo. It’s quicker to 62mph than the Aston Martin DBS by half a second, but costs £82,000 less, so you could also buy a Porsche Boxster for sunny days and still have change left over.

There are plenty of luxury sports car models that have drop-top variants, including the Bentley Continental, Aston Martin DBS, Porsche 911, BMW M8, and Jaguar F-Type. The Mercedes-AMG SL is only available with a soft-top. And you can also have a high-performance, wind-in-the-hair motoring experience in the likes of the Aston Martin Vantage Volante and DB11 Volante, and the Mercedes-AMG GT.