Top Gear magazine in 2002

TopGear Magazine in 2002

Clarkson in 2002: "Devising new ways to annoy people in cagoules should be on the school curriculum."

TopGear Car of the Year: Range Rover
"Climbing to the top means being able to mount kerb and conquer mountain. The Range Rover does this and also includes a world class interior, peerless refinement and faultless driving characteristics. The ‘best four by four by far' is the best car of 2002, too."

Three cars from 2002

Ford Fiesta

"The Fiesta's steering didn't offer much feel, the 1.4-litre engine sounded like nothing much at all and in a left-hand drive car in left-hand bends, I found myself leaning this way and that because the A-pillar was in the way. The car's extra weight and higher centre of gravity now makes it feel nothing like the old Fiesta, which I thought was really magic to drive. Now I'm missing that raw edge. That's progress for you." February 2002

Vauxhall Vectra

"After the criticism leveled at the first Vectra, you would have thought that General Motors would have pulled out all the organ stops, employed the best brains in the business and delivered a car which would blast the Passat and the Mondeo and the Laguna to Kingdom Come. But of course, they haven't. They've delivered a car that is better than the old Vectra. But that really wasn't going to be all that hard. Vauxhall, amazingly, has cocked it up again." April 2002

Ferrari Enzo

"Another pull of the paddle, another gear. This is just so fast. But there is no problem, there is still lots of track left. Another gear and suddenly, blind panic. How can..? No time to think. Just brake. Brake, brake, brake and turn left. That was just not possible. Even, eventually, with heart rate and breathing approaching normality, what just happened remains unfathomable. Someone or something must've stolen from the space-time continuum." September 2002

The best-selling car of 2002: Ford Focus

The best-selling song of 2002: Evergreen - Will Young

And elsewhere in the world in 2002: The Euro enters general circulation in much of Central Europe; the UK celebrates the Queen's Golden Jubilee; and the UN unanimously passes a resolution forcing Saddam Hussein to disarm.