The quest for the perfect car is difficult. Is there really a perfect car? Of course it depends on the beholder. For some people, the perfect car really is a Toyota Corolla. It does everything they want and need. For enthusiasts, however, the quest becomes much more difficult. If your garage only has one car in it, the quest is even worse. How do you compromise on handling, performance, economy, luxury -- and price?

Aren't we all on the quest for the perfect car? I am going to maintain that we'll never find it. The only way go get to perfection -- and it still isn't possible is to have enough wealth to afford a fleet of cars so you can pick the perfect one for the time you are ready to drive.

Today I need to go to Home Depot and pick up fertilizer for my garden. A pickup would be great, but I hate driving pickups. Another possibility would be a station wagon, but then it smells inside for a day or so. Maybe the station wagon would be better all around. But where are we going to find a driver's station wagon? Of course, the AMG Mercedes E63 wagon! That certainly is a great powerful wagon, but are you ready to toss a few bags of fertilizer into the back of an $85k plus (a lot of plus if you factor in options) vehicle? I think not.

A more practical choice for the two car family is a commuter car that gets great mileage and a great driving sedan to carry everyone when we need to drive somewhere.

Note that I did not suggest an SUV as the addition to the commuter car. I don't know of one of those that drives well at all. No, the Porsche Cayenne does not drive like a Porsche regardless of what you've read. It drives like a great big heavy truck. It does drive like the best very heavy truck you've ever driven, though. I hope you recognize that I'm damning it with faint praise.

Anyway, back to our two-car garage with the driver's car and a commuter car. I was going to start naming cars here as suggestions but there are just way too many non-refrigerator cars that come to mind in each category. Then if you factor in budget into the choice, it does reduce choices a bit, but not a lot.

I would also suggest that if budget is a problem when choosing the cars -- and maybe even if budget isn't so much the problem, but you are a smart buyer -- selecting a CPO car. That is "Certified Pre-Owned". Most manufacturers offer a program like that through their dealers. With so many cars now leased, particularly in Southern California, a CPO car can be a good buy. And if you want to lease, the CPO cars can usually be leased as well. You will get a car that is two or three years old, and selected by the dealer to be very nice. The cars go through a mechanical inspection before they are offered on the lot. Also the manufacturer offers a warranty that is longer than what the original new car came with. That means that it is wise for the dealer to really select the good cars because of possible warranty claims.

At least some of the manufacturers offer a search process for these cars on their web site. You can look at all the dealers in a selected range of miles and see what cars they offer. I think this is really a great service. It is surprising that all manufacturers don't offer this service. Unlike searching for new cars that dealers are "expected" to trade with each other -- and Evan has pointed out that because of that they often protect some cars by having them presold to "John Doe", the CPO cars aren't traded because another dealer rarely has a similar car to trade.

For those of you on a serious budget, I always recommend either a new car or CPO car. This may sound strange because it would seem that buying a used car would allow you to get "more car". Maybe, but there is clear advantage to your budget to buy a car with a complete warranty. When you drive a car like that you know in advance very well what your monthly payments will be. There will be no surprise of a large bill from a mechanic to repair your car. Yes, you do need to budget routine service (except with BMW, of course), and standard wear replacement items like brakes and tires. I think that if you are on a tight budget, knowing that you won't have a surprise sometime with a large repair bill would be an advantage.

On the other hand, what about those of you who aren't constrained by what you pay for a car. This isn't me, but there certainly seem to be a lot of you out there who can go in and write a check for whatever car you want whenever you want. If you look at the Maserati and Bentley I drove recently, those are cars that fit into this category.

Autocar magazine in England just did a test of the five fastest "normal production" cars they could find. Yes, they were missing the Ferrari 599 which was unavailable. The prices really ranged widely too (from lowest to highest, and the prices are converted from pounds at today's rate of $2 to the pound):

Audi R8	$154,000	414 hp	3432 lb
Porsche 911 GT3 RS	$188,560	409 hp	3025 lb
Aston Martin DB9 Sport	$224,490	450 hp	3872 lb
Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera	$300,000	512 hp	2926 lb
Bugatti Veyron	$1,678,000	987 hp	4136 lb

Right from the beginning you can see that you can buy the first four and still not nearly pay as much as the Bugatti, or you can decide to have almost ten Porsches for the price of the Bugatti. But if you want the best...

Oops, I'm getting ahead of myself.

From a day of driving in the foothills of France, several things became clear to the writers of Autocar that none of these cars were refrigerators. But then what would you expect?

Two of the cars were lightly disguised "track cars". This is a relatively new category of car that manufacturers make in small numbers for rich owners who want to drive a car on the road to a racetrack for "track days". These cars are really designed to go fast on a smooth race track, and are usually very stiff for driving on real roads. Those two are the Lamborghini and the Porsche.

You may have read several tests of the 911 GT3 in U.S. publications saying that it is very fast and is really designed for more for the track than commuting. There have been a few drives of the Gallardo Superleggera with pretty much the same assessment.

The real road cars of the bunch are the other three. For the price, the Audi was the most impressive of the bunch, as "he most civilized super car the world has ever known". Alas, for how good the Audi is, it is slower than all but the Aston Martin. They characterize the Aston as a very fast car in the normal context of other cars, but in this group it was like "driving down the road in your favorite armchair." Note also that the Aston is the only front-engine car in the group.

The Lambo, on the other hand was very stiff and very loud. In fact, the Lambo was the maximum of both those scales, and the Bugatti was the minimum. The problem is that the Lambo isn't really musical in sound, just brutal. That's a V-10 for you.

The Porsche is really a stripped track car that can be licensed for the street. But that doesn't mean that it has as uncivilized ride as the Lamborghini. Probably the most uncivilized thing about this particular GT3 RS was that it didn't have air conditioning. It really is surprisingly civilized.

Which one is the fastest? Let me quote Steve Sutcliffe at length: "As it happens, I was in the GT3 RS and not the R8 when, finally, the Veyron appeared in the mirror. My friend, Chris Harris was driving the Bugatti and the deal had been that he would leave the car park 30 seconds after I set off. Then we'd see how long it would take him to catch me and, when he did so, whether it would be possible for him to get past.

"On the way down the mountain, the GT3 RS completely blew me away. I expected it to have explosive throttle response, fabulous steering, mighty brakes and fantastic body control. And it did, just like the regular GT3 I drove a couple of months back, only moreso.

"But I also expected it to ride like a rollerskate and be generally pretty evil to drive unless I was at 10/10ths, but no. The RS felt damn near as smooth and refined over the ground as the R8, only the 911 had a much bigger punch down the straights and a lot more bite at its front end. I began to think that Chris wouldn't be able to catch me.

"And then it appeared, hovering like a missile behind me, its xenon headlights burning two big holes in the back of my head. As the road got tighter and twistier, I became aware that I was driving the GT3 RS about as hard as I'm prepared to drive a car on the public road, yet the Veyron would not go away.

"It just sat there, watching me, watching it. Waiting. Then a shortish straight appeared, I caned the 911 as frantically as I could in third gear and, whoosh, Harris and the Bugatti just blew by me and the GT3 RS like we were standing still.

"I will never forget what that looked and sounded and felt like. It's some car, the Veyron, it truly is."

Okay for your million plus, you get a truly fast car and one that easily can be driven to the grocery store. Yes, just two people allowed, and only a little baggage room. If you need more space, that's what the Roller is for...