Giulietta Cloverleaf vs Megane RenaultSport

They reckon Mankind’s first wheel turned somewhere in Mesopotamia in the 4th century BC. And a few hundred years later, you can be sure, the ancient inhabitants of Italy made something fairly similar. It will have looked a bit prettier too, but probably wasn’t round.

Even today, in our homogenised and increasingly one-car-fits-all world, the Italians are still doing it their own way. Almost all Italian cars are blessed with a certain indefinable element of cool that makes life better for the simple act of driving them. But almost all Italian cars also appear to have been built by (very recent) graduates of a Montessori nursery. Dr Montessori, it turns out on Wikipedia, was Italian.

Words: Matt Master
Photos: Lee Brimble

This article was originally published in December's issue of Top Gear magazine