Ask any schoolboy about his dream car and one — or all — of these will come up. When they grow up they'll continue to want one. their dream — along with that office at the end of the passage — will always include one of these cars in the CEO's basement parking too. And, if they're lucky enough, they'll live that dream of driving one — or even all of these to work and back every day.

Such is the stuff of dreams...

The Ferrari F430 and Lamborghini Gallardo are well-established rivals to the Porsche 911, so when the seventh-generation of that Stuttgart icon finally arrived on our roads, the first thing we did was to live every little boy's — and big man's — dream of gathering the three together to experience what the privileged few who indeed do own all three of these cars have to live with...

The all-new Porsche 911 Turbo, as you will read in more detail anon, features two water-cooled variable geometry turbochargers along with Porsche's VarioCam Plus valve timing control and a new variable intake system. Other novel Turbo niceties include nine-pump dry sump lubrication and a second heat exchanger to help ensure a significant increase in grunt — power is up from 309kW in the outgoing model to 353kW at 6000rpm, while torque jumps from 560 to 620Nm in a fat range between 1950 and 5000rpm, despite engine capacity remaining 3.6 litres...

Considerable power boost

Variable turbine geometry is an art perfected in turbodiesels to ensure optimal boost pressure at all engine speeds and throttle loads, and Porsche is one of the first to use it in a petrol installation to help it find that considerable power boost over the previous 911 Turbo. But that's not all - Porsche's newly developed all-wheel drive management system features an electromagnetically controlled multiple-plate clutch for optimum front to rear power distribution, which responds to both driving and road conditions within fractions of a second.

Our Tiptronic S-equipped 911 Turbo test car also boasted a Fast-Off function to prevent the autobox from shifting up if the driver fails to lift off on braking, while allowing for quicker and sportier downshifts and also to find the right gear in preparation for forthcoming acceleration. Porsche also claims the Tiptronic S automatic Turbo is quicker than the manual — accelerating to 100 in just 3.7 seconds, thanks apparently to the divine interaction of all its new systems. Top speed, as in the manual is said to be 310km/h.

And if you thought that was all cool, Porsche offers an optional Sports Chrono Package that incorporates a brief increased turbocharger pressure overboost to hike torque by 60Nm for short bursts of 680Nm if and when needed...

Ferrari power

The Ferrari is powered by a brilliant 4.308-litre quad-cam 32-valve V8 that produces 360kW at a lofty 8500rpm — the highest revving at present, I believe, of any production vehicle, with a limit just shy of nine grand. And it's a beautiful piece of work, too — just as the latest Ferrari engine should be.

At 112bhp per litre, F430 is also right on the button in the specific power stakes — only the Honda S2000 betters that in a normally aspirated application. But the Fezza has torque, too — and mountains of it — 465Nm at a relatively lofty 5250rpm peak, but it's generously spread throughout the band. That's what makes all the difference. The longitudinally installed midships V8 drives the rear wheels through Ferrari's latest, robotically commanded six-speed manual 'box in our F430 F1 test unit — a cabriolet as we could not source a coupe in time for our photo shoot...

The Lamborghini boasts a 5.0-litre 'Audi' V10 that develops around 390kW at 8000rpm. The Gallardo employs all-wheel drive to transfer power to road via a six-speed paddle-shifted robo-box, which also doubles as an auto.

Now I have a bit of a problem with the Lambo V10 — while this brilliant lump was initially introduced in this car, it has subsequently appeared in Audis of all sorts, with a twin turbo version of it promised for a future super saloon and now Ingolstadt has even used this whole car as the basis of its όber Audi. Which kind of blunts the Lambo's allure a little — you can't really call it exclusive any more, can you?

Yes, the Ferrari mill is available in other cars — it first appeared in the Maserati Quattroporte and has since spread throughout the Trident's range and now there's a super-exclusive Alfa that also has it. At least Ferrari hasn't bastardised this gem's halo by stuffing it into a whole bunch of saloon cars. Rest assured though, that Porsche engine is going to stay exactly where it is...

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