Performance Car of the Year photo gallery - day 1

CAR publishes its Performance Car of the Year 2010 supplement this week. It's a 36-page standalone mag charting our 2500-mile European road trip to thrash out which is the best sports car of the year. We'll have a full microsite launching later in the week, video, competitions and more - plus we'll upload a gallery every day with some of the out-takes, extra photos and background to our PCOTY road trip. Come back every day for more.

Subaru, Renault, Lotus and Ferrari pound the autoroutes from Calais. Not exactly your most low-profile convoy then. 

'Is this your Ferrari, sir?' 

Queuing at Dover port gives us a chance to compare the first four cars of our convoy. The rest will meet at our rendezvous in southern France, delivered from all corners of Europe

The Ferrari 458 Italia didn't look this clean and glitzy for long... 

Now that's what we call a rear-view mirror shot... Maranello still do cam covers better than anyone else. Discuss

It seemed rude not to drop into the old grand prix circuit at Reims. Italia would've probably won a race here back when it was a working track

We're driving on the right here, so that's not the four-cylinder Elise overtaking the 458. Surely 

Renaultsport relished a return to the land of its makers. It shone everywhere 

And there's the Ferrari overtaking the Megane. Come to think of it, did anything overtake the Italia all week? We're not honestly sure it did... 

Reims might be better known for its champagne, but we were here to test bubbly nature of the horsepower variety 

'On your marks, get set, fight for the Italian keys...' 

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