TG24 15.00: Atom 4 vs Cayman GT4 vs Supra vs AMG GT R Pro vs XE Project 8

By this point I’m operating a two seconds open, two seconds shut policy – it’s the best I can do. That and pray they see the Atom in time to take evasive action. Sounds like the Jag first, full metal racket, explosions when it spots me and lifts, then more thunder as it flashes past… followed by a higher-pitched, more cultured rasp. The Supra must have been hiding in the Jag’s wake; don’t suspect it’ll keep up for long.

Two down, two to go. Here comes another, spinning hard, longer pauses before the revs start climbing again – that’ll be the Cayman dancing by. I’m nearly back at the pits now – I can make out a red grandstand and a white smudge to my left – the Sagres logo – just one long right-hander before sanctuary. But here’s the Merc, snorting and spitting, tyres screeching and a whiff of vaporised rubber as it overtakes – I can only assume – fully lit around the outside. I roll to a stop in the pits, mime daggers being repeatedly inserted into my eyes, and retire to the toilet to plunge my head into a sink of cold water. That was fun.

This is it then, folks, the launch pad for our 24-hour odyssey: 3pm on a gorgeous afternoon, temperatures parked beyond 35°C and a group of five wildly different performance cars – the variety show – because where better to start than with an all-singing, all-drifting demonstration of the outrageous diversity we’re currently enjoying? Driver-focused, but philosophically opposite rear-drive coupes from Germany and Japan, a track-obsessed super saloon born from a sales-rep special, a British flyweight that both refines and spikes the formula, and a hulk of a supercar optimised for bullying racetracks, but just as happy to throw its weight around on the road. We live in gilded times.

Eyes bathed, I’m keen for something gentler and gravitate towards the Supra. I’ll let you into a secret... when we asked Toyota to support this event, way back before we’d even driven it, it was a hot tip in the Top Gear office to take the honours. Time has not been kind. Sticky accusations that it’s just a BMW Z4 in drag, claims that it lacks the character and engineering obsession all Japanese icons have in abundance, and questions around its £50k pricetag have all deflated its stock value. But we still wanted it here – a win in itself – to give it a chance to prove us all wrong.

Forget the BMW interior; let’s focus on the driving, in particular the powertrain. Smooth, crisp, full-bodied and many other wine-based adjectives apply here. Really barrel into one of the hairpins and you can catch the gearbox napping on downshifts, but it doesn’t take life too seriously. Switch off everything, deploy deliberate clumsiness and the Supra’s happy to move around a bit, or simply cremate its rear tyres. Issue is, it all feels a bit numb, a bit bubble-wrapped, a bit… entry-level in this company. It’s a wonderfully rounded road car but, for anything more taxing, it falls short. And there’s the nagging thought that for the same money you could have a BMW M2 Competition which, quite frankly, is in a league above.

Jag next, and no great expectations here, either. Especially when I spot it’s not the newly announced Touring spec, which deletes the rear wing, shrinks the front splitter, insists on rear seats and makes a 592bhp, £150k, four-wheel-drive, psycho saloon infinitely cooler. The problem with the Project 8 is that Jaguar claims it’s built a rival to the 911 GT3 RS, but if you wanted to do that, why start with a heavy four-door saloon? Why make life so difficult, and force yourself to charge an exorbitant amount of money to cover all your hard work? Wouldn’t a heavily stripped F-Type have made more sense?

But wait a minute – this is my first time on a track in one, and it’s better than you think. Jag’s 5.0-litre supercharged V8 is a force of nature, but the immediacy of the turn-in, the front end’s ability to hang on, how absurdly early you can get back on the power and pull yourself straight in each corner… it’s very moreish. Jag has, indeed, spun a tiny miracle here. Problem is, once you’ve figured it out, there aren’t too many more layers to peel back, unless you leave your brain in the glovebox.

Unlike the Porsche Cayman 718 GT4, the one with the unenviable task of replacing the old Cayman GT4 – a car variously described as “perfect” and “the greatest driver’s machine ever made”. No biggie. The formula is similar, of course – no turbos, many revs, chassis honed for the track, manual gearbox – but the bits are largely new, including the 414bhp, 8,000rpm, 4.0-litre flat-six and the aero package that deals a smidgen more downforce. Within moments, it’s there, the warm embrace of feedback – through your fingers, toes, ears, shoulders, bum. Knowledge is power, and in it streams: information on what the tyre contact patch is up to, whether the engine is in its sweetspot, how much harder the suspension wants to be worked.

Weirdly, I wouldn’t call the new GT4 precise. It moves around more than a track-locked racer – rolls a bit here, slides a bit there, but you can always place it in the right areas. Perhaps that’s because it never really feels that fast on track. It just seems to accumulate and shed speed at a comfortable rate, never feels overly frenetic, despite a 34bhp bump over the old one. But there’s trouble in paradise.

This new engine is perfectly good, revs cleanly, does its job with distinction, but lacks the climax of the one it replaces... doesn’t feel quite as crisp. And, once again, the gearing is too long. You can do an entire lap of Portimão in second and third, which isn’t right. To gear this car for 84mph in second, you’re leaving potential on the table. Porsche’s GT department claims it’s because drivers don’t want to change gear too often on a track day. B*ll*cks. It’s because Porsche doesn’t want to step on the GT3 RS’s toes, and in the process has built a car that while hauntingly brilliant in some areas, is a step back from its predecessor in others.

Time for an adrenalin shot, straight to the heart. Brow mopped of factor 30, it’s back into the Atom to experience whether a new turbocharged engine from the Civic Type R, thicker chassis tubes, entirely rethought suspension, a wider cabin and all manner of new electronic toys, like seven-stage traction control and three boost levels for the turbo, have soured or enhanced the Atom experience.

Hoooooooly cheek flaps, only an Atom does that – boost you down the road with such viciousness that you crash into the limiter while your brain struggles to compute and your left hand flails around hopelessly trying to grab another gear. Is there turbo lag? Yes, if you floor it from tickover, but you don’t, do you? You slot in the precise, mechanical gearlever when the boost is high and the response is instant and conclusive.

So, the Atom has lost none of its tactility in the corners or violence on the straights, but it appears to have gained a maturity none of us were quite expecting. Suspension that absorbs the bumps rather than pinging off them, and more grip and more predictability when you breach those limits. You still don’t throw an Atom around a track, you ask it questions and wait for the answers, and that’s what makes it so brilliant – driving one is a conversation and no two laps are the same.

I jump from the waspish and nimble to the hefty and hairy-chested. It’s five years since the original AMG GT arrived, and Mercedes hasn’t just been adding power and stiffer dampers since – it’s been refining the package as a whole. As a result, the AMG GT R Pro isn’t just a way of spending an extra £40k over the suddenly-quite-amateur AMG GT R, it’s the best AMG GT to date. Capable of a 7mins 4secs ’Ring lap, still usable on B-roads and, as I’m about to discover, the least-intimidating intimidating car I’ve ever driven.

Everything about it shouts only hot-shoes need apply – from the stripes to the winglets, the acres of bonnet to its spluttering, bassy idle. Get into the flow, though, and it’s a symphony of components working in tune with one another. You sit over the back axle, so move with it when you get out of shape rather than the car rotating around you – some hate that, I see another dimension to the experience.

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The engine has no more power than the GT R, but then 577bhp is enough to beast whatever you put in front of it. The twin-clutch snaps through shifts, where it used to hestitate, the steering is rapid but full of messages, despite the prodigious distance to the front wheels, and the traction control is masterful. Turn everything off, then twirl the nine-click yellow dial down to its penultimate position and a billy like me can drift around like a stunt driver, safely ushered by an electronic palm.

A message crackles over the radio that the next group is fuelled and ready to go. Time for one last lap, so I lock the doors on this five-year-old Merc. Not a hesitation, it’s that good. One group down, five to go and already we’ve all had favourites fall, dark horses emerge and a medical emergency. Keep your eyes open – it’s going to be a blinder.

TOYOTA SUPRA 
Price: £54,000 
Engine: 3.0T, inline six, 335bhp, 369lb ft, RWD 
Performance: 0–62mph in 4.3secs, 155mph 
Weight: 1495kg 
Power to weight: 224bhp/tonne

JAGUAR XE SV PROJECT 8 
Price: £149,995 
Engine: 5.0S, V8, 592bhp, 516lb ft, AWD 
Performance: 0–62mph in 3.7secs, 200mph 
Weight: 1745kg 
Power to weight: 339bhp/tonne

ARIEL ATOM 4 
Price: £39,975 
Engine: 2.0T, 4cyl, 316bhp, 310lb ft, RWD 
Performance: 0–62mph in 2.8secs, 162mph 
Weight: 595kg 
Power to weight: 531bhp/tonne

PORSCHE 718 CAYMAN GT4 
Price: £75,348 
Engine: 4.0, flat-six, 414bhp, 310lb ft, RWD 
Performance: 0–62mph in 4.4secs, 188mph 
Weight: 1495kg 
Power to weight: 277bhp/tonne

MERCEDES-AMG GT R PRO 
Price: £188,345 
Engine: 4.0T, V8, 577bhp, 516lb ft, RWD 
Performance: 0–62mph in 3.6secs, 198mph 
Weight: 1575kg 
Power to weight: 366bhp/tonne