IN THIS FEATURE Like having a mistress who can cook Shifting expectations Traffic-light hero

Sometimes you can improve a car's gearshift, though. I have a Citroen SM, one of the world's quirkiest-ever supercars, and one of 4Car's 100 Greatest. It had a very nice plastic gearshift knob on it but the thread wore out, so we threaded the lever, made an identical gearknob out of solid aluminium the exact same shape, polished it and had it anodised black. It has a wonderfully mechanical feel and sits perfectly in the palm of your hand.

The McLaren F1's gearchange is definitely one of the most pleasurable of the cars in my collection. If you read Driving Ambition - the official, inside story of the Mclaren F1, you realise just how much effort went into getting that rifle-bolt gearchange spot on. But it's not perfect. The Porsche Carrera GT's gearbox trumps it. When you use it, you realise you are experiencing one of the finest gearboxes ever made.

Easy to burn GTIs at the lights...

One of the big failings of most supercars is that you are not going to risk a $5000 clutch just to beat a kid in a GTI... or maybe you are, but it's going to cost you $5000. But Porsche has solved this problem with its ceramic clutch, which is good for 40,000 miles of hard burnouts. No longer do you have the embarrassment of some spotty teenager blowing you off at the stoplight. I want to thank Porsche for letting me keep my immaturity...

Jay Leno was speaking to Jeremy Hart


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