Best handling cars

Handling is a difficult thing to define, being far more than just a car’s levels of grip, the speed of its steering, or its ability to power oversteer. It is, in fact, more of a combination of these things, but if the concept is difficult to pin down, it’s thankfully a lot easier to draw up a list of the best handling cars – like tasting great food, you just know it when you experience it.

The way cars handle has changed a great deal over time, and while in some ways modern technology might have removed a layer of driver interaction in the eyes of some enthusiasts, for others it’s allowed cars to do things that would have been impossible even as recently as a few decades ago.

Below are the ten best handling cars currently on sale, and we’ve tried to explain just why they’re some of our favourites. Be sure to let us know in the comments if you’ve got your own handling benchmark.

Best handling cars

• Porsche 911 GT3 RS
• Alpine A110 R
• McLaren 765LT
• Caterham Seven
• Honda Civic Type R
• Ferrari 296 GTB
• Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio
• Mercedes-AMG A45
• Mazda MX-5
• Hyundai Ioniq 5 N

Porsche 911 GT3 RS

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• Prices from: £192,600

Pick a point any time in the last 25 years and there’s a good chance a Porsche 911 GT3 would be towards the top of a list of best-handling cars. Porsche long ago tamed the 911’s once white-knuckle behaviour, and has instead turned its attention to refining the platform further than anyone could have imagined – and the 992-generation 911 GT3 RS is currently the ultimate expression of this process.

It’s rather different from its forebears though. The 992 generation GT3 is the first to use double wishbone front suspension rather than struts, and its standard four-wheel steering enhances agility further. Grip is enormous and doesn’t tail off at higher speeds, as the RS can also generate more than 400kg of downforce at trackday speeds, and nearly 900kg towards its 184mph top speed. Amazingly, its ride isn’t too extreme for the road either, while its steering is among the most interactive you’ll find on a modern road car. It’s really quite spectacular.

Alpine A110 R

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• Prices from: £91,490

If the Lotus Elise showed the benefits of light weight in the mid 1990s, the Alpine A110 launched in 2017 did the same against a backdrop of ever bulkier SUVs and two-tonne sports saloons. At barely 1,100kg it’s around 300kg lighter than a Porsche Cayman, and barely a moment goes by on a twisty road that you don’t appreciate Alpine’s efforts towards weight saving.

While the standard car has a light, delicate feel, the more serious Alpine A110 R, with its carbon carbon fibre wheels, stickier tyres, and stripped-out cabin, shows a different side to the car. Here grip, control and feedback are all ramped up, yet because there’s still not much weight to control, the A110’s excellent ride quality barely deteriorates despite the stiffer setup. It might look like a track car, but it’s possibly even better on the road.

McLaren 765LT

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• Prices from: £280,000

It would be easy to get distracted by the huge power of McLaren’s turbocharged V8 in the 765LT, but it’s a sign of just how impressive it is that the chassis by no means plays second fiddle. Based on the 720S (since replaced by the 750S), the 765LT ramps up the grip and downforce, but leaves the involvement fully intact.

A high point of all McLaren’s recent road cars has been its steering. The brand still uses hydraulic assistance, rather than electric power steering, and since the mid-engined layout means a light front end, the result is deliciously interactive, perfectly-weighted steering – almost like a brutally fast Lotus Elise. The 765’s thrills are enhanced further by a pair of McLaren Senna-sourced seats and about the best driving position of any car, which really keys you into the experience.

Caterham Seven

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• Prices from: £29,490

As long as the Caterham Seven remains on sale, it’s likely to be a fixture in ‘best handling car’ lists. A Seven isn’t for everyone, not least those that struggle to fit within its tiny frame (SV versions are less of a squeeze, but the S certainly doesn’t stand for ‘S-Class’), but they’re a real assault on the senses – mostly for the best.

Light weight means strong performance even from the more modest engine options, but the biggest benefit is probably to the Seven’s handling. Sevens can generate enormous grip from only a small tyre footprint, because they’re so low and there’s so little weight to fling around. Steering response is as instantaneous as it gets, and sharp throttle response means you can use the rear wheels for steering too – and gather it up again quickly, thanks to there being so little inertia to any movement. This is back-to-basics driving at its purest.

Honda Civic Type R

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• Prices from: £50,050

The only front-wheel drive car on this list fully deserves its place. The Honda Civic Type-R, in its latest ‘FL5’ generation, is a front-driven all-time great. Not perhaps as involving as those old hot hatches we used to love, such as the Peugeot 205 GTI or Renault Clio Williams, but immensely capable on both road and track.

While a handful of modern rivals give the Civic a run for its money in terms of pure amusement, very few can get close to its grip, response, steering and chassis feedback, and its nonchalance over tough road surfaces. Despite its size, the Civic is impressively lightweight at only a smidge over 1400kg (some rivals are 100kg or more on top of that), and its wide and long footprint gives it enormous stability too. That it’s also handsome, has one of the best manual gear shifts anywhere, and has a great interior are just extra cherries on top.

Ferrari 296 GTB

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• Prices from: £241,550

Ferrari doesn’t tend to turn out duffers in the handling department. Most of its mid-engined cars in recent memory have been spectacular handlers, but the impressive thing is, the genius engineers and development drivers at Maranello somehow manage to make their cars better with each generation, too.

So now we’re at the 296 GTB, we’re talking about something really special. First there’s just the fundamentally excellent balance of a well-developed mid-engined car. This is then enhanced by underbody downforce and active aero, pushed further still by the latest iteration of the company’s E-Diff, and the magic of Side Slip Control, which can help even the relatively cack-handed drift like Alberto Ascari on track.

Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio

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• Prices from: £79,495

This isn’t an original statement, but the Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio is about as close as you’ll get to a four-door Ferrari – ignoring, of course, the SUV-style Ferrari Purosangue. It’s not hyperbole to suggest so, though, since chief engineer on the Giulia project was Philippe Krief, who’d previously worked on the Ferrari 458 Speciale.

Alfa worked hard to keep the Giulia’s weight low, and along with quick steering and a supple ride, you’ve got a car that feels incredibly fleet and agile, but not punishing on bumpy roads. It’s at its best in 500-horsepower Quadrifoglio form, and better still in its post-facelift iteration, which swapped the old unpredictable electronic torque vectoring differential for a mechanical one, giving consistent drive out of every corner.

Mercedes-AMG A45

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• Prices from: £63,445

There was a time that all-wheel drive performance hatchbacks had fairly prescriptive handling. You’d get plenty of traction, particularly useful in poor weather, but often a nose-led balance that made fast driving an frustrating affair, and not a lot of fun. One of the best examples of how this is no longer the case comes from Mercedes-AMG, and its A45.

Quite aside from the fact this hatch is wildly quick in a straight line, thanks to a 2-litre turbo four-cylinder making more than 400 horsepower, it’s also a real handler too. There’s huge front end grip, but get on the power early and you feel it driving you through and out of a corner almost like it’s rear-wheel drive – but with the extra security of the front wheels helping out. It makes the A45 far more involving than four-wheel drive hatches of old.

Mazda MX-5

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• Prices from: £28,000

The Mazda MX-5 is perfectly imperfect. If you crave maximum steering feedback and race-car style body control it’s probably not the sports car for you, but for road-going fun, few cars on sale today can top it. The fact it’s also the most affordable proper sports car on sale just adds to its appeal.

Complaints usually focus around the way MX-5s lean over in corners, but Mazda did this deliberately, letting average drivers feel the car moving around, and giving them a sense of cornering quickly even at everyday speeds. Tune into this and it’s a hoot to throw an MX-5 down a country road or through a roundabout, and almost any argument against the million-selling roadster can be answered by the vast aftermarket parts industry.

Hyundai Ioniq 5 N

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• Prices from: £65,000
• Best handling EV

The latest electric cars do a great many things well, but finding one that’s anywhere close to the most entertaining combustion vehicles for pure fun is a lot trickier. One that absolutely does justify its place among the best though is the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N – which blows all other EVs out of the water for entertainment and driver appeal.

That maybe shouldn’t be a surprise, given Hyundai’s track record for making great petrol-powered fun cars – the i20N, i30N, and in the US the Veloster N and Elantra N are all near the top of their class. But the Ioniq 5 N does this through different means, mostly overcoming its hefty kerb weight (more than 2.2 tonnes) to deliver agile and adjustable all-wheel drive handling, with a few toys thrown in for good measure – including a drift mode, and artificial but very convincing ‘gear changes’. It has huge pace through the corners, too.

Now read our list of the best supercars...