YOU will rarely see owners of open cars driving them with the roof down on the motorway because it's too fast to be fun - you get turned inside out!

But there is still nothing quite like that feeling of wind in your hair on the right sunny day, even in the depths of winter.

Add the right country road and it is wonderful, and one of the best cars to be driving has to be the MG TF.

All are mid-engined for excellent balance and the engines are 1.6 with 114bhp and 1.8s with 118, 134 or 157.

All drive the rear wheels through a five speed ‘box with close ratios to make the best of the power.

The engines rev sweetly all the way to the red line, and even the lower powered models offer plenty of performance, with a 0 to 60 time of nine seconds.

Top VVC models and others with the same engines bring that down to a very quick seven seconds.

With the soft-top in place - which incidentally is good and watertight - things do get noisy at speed, both from the wind and the engine.

The direct and positive power steering is a joy to use, with loads of feel.

It looks great from all angles, and to negate the noise problem in winter, there is a trimmed hard-top available. Plenty around, so only buy the best with full history.

Pay about £2,000 for an '03 53-reg 1.6, £3,600 for an '05 05-reg VVC

114bhp, 1,598cc, 4 cylinder petrol engine driving rear wheels via a 5  speed manual gearbox

118mph

9.2 seconds

39

9

169g/km

9/10

Mazda MX-5