Many of us have been suffering over the last couple of years from the clanging chimes of doom sounding from every news portal in the universe. Tax rises are pushing fuel costs through the stratosphere. Winter temps are making snow tires trendy and the sales of agricultural 4x4s are soaring. In other words your track day ride is firmly ensconced in the spare garage.

You might be fooled into thinking, then, that the beautiful springtime of dry tarmac and the open road might be a long way away.

But to bring the clement climate forward a bit, our advice to you is to get yourself to Brum next week for the Autosport International Show. Between 13–17 January the NEC is going o be stacked with the sort of automotive goodies that will be sure to blow the gloom away.

This year’s Live Action Arena features action from Fifth Gear presenters Tiff Needell and Jason Plato as well as stunts, drifts and races from all areas of motorsport.

Showgoers will have the chance to experience one of the most exhilarating sports cars on the market in the Caterham Drive Experience (rumour has it that the venerable British company that specialises in Lightweight Sports Cars will be unveiling a new model at this year’s show too).

We’ll be there too, right next to our friends and partners at Pistonheads, so it’d be great to see you; come by say hi, pick up a copy of the print zine, and take part in our unofficial contest to find the best chat-up line with which to hit up a booth babe. (Just kidding on that last bit. Sort of.)

Arash AF10
Few of Arash Farboud’s creations have yet to trouble the DVLA, but we hope his latest, £320,000 Vette V8-powered creation makes it to production

FBS Census
This odd-looking roadster rather boldly named itself the ‘Future of British Sportscars’. It stank of glue, broke down, and then sank without trace.

Panther 6
Panther lurched from crisis to crisis for twenty years before succumbing to the inevitable. The Solo was quite good, the Panther 6 quite mad.

TVR Cerbera Speed 12
The maddest product of TVR’s nineties heyday under Peter Wheeler: 1000bhp, but only one made it to the road. Less than a decade later TVR was dead, but there are rumours of reincarnation

Morgan Roadster
They’ve been making cars from wattle and daub at a glacial rate in Pickersleigh Road, Malvern for a century now, so must be doing something right.

Caterham Seven
The design might be more than half a century old but it’s simple to build and still a performance and handling benchmark; that’s why Caterham is still in business.

Noble M12
Rave reviews weren’t enough to guarantee a stable business. Despite the departure of the brillant but difficult Lee Noble, the firm is still around and working on a £200,000 supercar.

Ariel Atom
Brilliant design, stellar performance and long queues of buyers; this is how low-volume sports cars should be done

Bristol Fighter
The anomaly of small British sports car firms: this bizarre, secretive, blue-blooded company makes outrageous cars at outrageous prices in tiny numbers with no publicity yet seems immune to the downturn

Midas Gold
“I couldn’t do better than a Midas”, said Gordon Murray of this Metro-based, plastic-bodied ‘sports’ car. That was before he created the McLaren F1. Wonder if he’s changed his mind?

1: The Honda Insight Mk1

Back when it was released in 1999 the first mass market electric hybrid it was otherworldly and strange. And  the cooler for it. A decade on it is retro progressive and quaint. Dig the clamp-busting rear wheels, too.

2: Land Rover Defender

The vast majority of all of these proper Landies are still on the road. Easy to maintain and fix with an adjustable spanner and a hammer. If something falls off, just bolt it back on. Utilitarian and future proof.

3 My Grandad’s Granada MK1

Not only are the words ‘Granada’ and ‘Grandad’ (almost) an anagram of one another, but my Grandad’s Gas Guzzling Granada outlived the old boy by a decade and officially ran for nearly 300,000 miles. Had he been that way inclined, he surely could have had it in the record books. And it was green.

4 Audi A1 Etron

Obviously taking design cues from the game changing Fiat 500, Audi’s electro-hybrid city car looks as sweet and fun as the Italian Shetland stallion but comes with a leccy motor too.

5 Puch Magnum

The farty little moped with the butch moniker is popular amid the emerging craze of caffing up 50 cc buzzers. Eternally cheap to run, determined to live on in our backyards and as fun as candy floss to thrash. Respect.

6 Caterham 7

Taking the micro manufacturing ethos to its most accessible conclusion, the lightweight flexible flyer treads ever so lightly whilst giving maximum automotive pleasure. If this is your only car, your footprint is going to be tiny.

7 Hindustani Ambassador

Ubiquitous on the subcontinent and manufactured constantly there since 1958, the ‘Amby’ is an object lesson in life cycle extension.

8 Bristol Fighter

Taking small volume manufacturing to its most inaccessible conclusion, Mr Bristol will only sell you a car if he likes you. Bespoke motoring in extremis, this. Still made in England and reeking of leather and walnut. This may be the future.

9 Cinelli Gazzetta, 2010

There’s no contradiction in drivers digging bikes. Dedicated road cyclists are after all intimates of the texture and camber of tarmac. Keep one in the back of your motor and there’ll be no need to sit in a traffic jam those last couple of miles to work ever again.

10 Honda CRZ

Whether a brand new car calling itself green is a contradiction or not, we love the look of Honda’s forthcoming ‘sporty’ hybrid.