Top Gear's greatest cars of the last 30 years: Bugatti Veyron and Toyota Aygo

The rules were broken in 2005. Top Gear magazine couldn't decide on a single car of the year, so it had two. Perhaps was a slight self guilt trip: the best car of the year surely couldn't be a £1 million, 8.0-litre, quad turbo, 16-cylinder hypercar which would only ever exist in the hundreds. How does that bring hope and aspiration to the rest of us? So, the palate cleanser was a sub-tonne, 1.0-litre, three-cylinder city car with a glass tailgate, a standard fit socket for your iPod and an entry price of less than £7k. Something for everyone, then.

What's ironic about this pairing is how their legacy has shifted perceptions. In 2005, the Veyron was a white elephant. Years late and millions over budget, VW's overspend on development and then the phenomenal cost of production meant that it was said to be losing millions on each one. This was a time before hypercar individualisation one-upmanship took off. In 2005, no one cared about your clear coat carbon finish. Bugatti's sledgehammer approach to beating the dainty McLaren F1's top speed record seemed vulgar and obtuse.

Meanwhile, the little Aygo spawned cousin cars from Peugeot and Citroen and the best game of football ever seen on British television. It sponsored cool, edgy young people on Channel 4. And then the cool, edgy young people learned to drive in them. It was a car that wore cost saving as a badge of honour. Cheap to buy, insure, run, and robust enough for all. And yet...

Here in 2023, the Aygo has had to morph into a bizarre crossover to survive. Its French relatives are dead. The entire city car sector is on life support. And meanwhile the Veyron has evolved into the even faster Chiron, with a fleet of multimillion limited editions pumping profit into the mothership's coffers. It says something about the state of the world these days that a 70mpg runabout for the people is no longer a viable piece of business, but collectors will fight to commission their own evolution of a once-derided 1,000bhp folly.