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In a normal year we can expect two or maybe three exceptionally good cars to come along. But 2003 has been extraordinary. The Rolls-Royce Phantom has not been much of a sales success, but then you don’t find too many bottles of 1945 Chateau Petrus being served at your local Harvester. As a piece of engineering, though, it is undoubtedly exquisite. Put simply, the Phantom is the best car the world has ever seen. By miles.

Then we saw the Volvo XC90, which is a seven-seat people carrier that isn’t too mumsy and a chunky 4x4 that isn’t too butch. It’s also relatively inexpensive without being cheap. It’s small wonder, then, that the dealers have already sold their entire allocation for 2004.

There were big advances on the safety front, too, with Renault leading the charge: its Mégane became the first small family hatchback to get the full five stars in the respected Euro NCAP safety performance test.

And Mercedes announced just the other day that it had finally produced an A-class that runs on hydrogen. It looks completely normal, can do 87mph, and yet produces nothing but water from its exhaust pipe. The only drawback is the price: £300,000.

Of course, none of these cars offers much in the way of driving fun. Earlier this year I drove the new Rolls round a racetrack, and to understand what it felt like you must try to imagine Queen Victoria doing the 100-metre hurdles. Or better still, AA Gill on a jet ski. In one corner, the traction control didn’t just intervene, it blew a silent whistle on proceedings — and that was that.

With no fuss and no drama, and with my foot hard down on the throttle, the three-ton car just ground to a halt in a cloud of palpable incredulity. “What in the name of all that’s holy,” it seemed to be saying, “do you think you’re doing?”

You might think this to be a fair question. You look at all the speed humps and the cameras and the traffic and the price of petrol . . . and think, well, what’s the point of a razor-sharp, ice-cool, four-wheeled bullet like this one?

Cars like the Rolls and the Volvo (which plods around like a tractor) and the Mégane, which doesn’t ever go fast enough to crash, are undoubtedly in tune with the times.

Maybe so. But despite this, the big news in 2003 was the sheer number of out-and-out fun cars that came onto the market in a flurry of spinning bow ties and clown shoes. There were so many, in fact, that I’ve made a video and a DVD about them. It’s called Shoot Out, and I shall be for ever in your debt if you go out tomorrow and buy it.

I shan’t tell you here which car from the most fun year in the history of motoring I reckon is . . . the most fun. But to give you an idea of just how intense the competition was, I shall write instead about a car that didn’t even make it to the final magnificent seven: the Porsche GT3.

The first thing you need to know about this is that Porsche is a difficult, arrogant, humourless company, and on the face of it that’s not a very good thing to be when you’re in the business of making fun cars. A 911, you always sense, “likes a laugh as much as the next man”, which is probably another way of saying “doesn’t like a laugh at all”.

None of the truly great comedians are funny when you meet them in real life. Rowan Atkinson, Ben Elton, even Richard Curtis. For these people, you see, comedy is a science, which means it must be approached in a straightforward, methodical fashion.

Creating a situation designed to make an audience fall off the backs of their seats is no different to creating a bridge or a chest of drawers. Seriously, folks. Tell Steve Coogan a funny story and he won’t laugh; he’ll probably say, “That’s funny”, but without a hint of a smile. Or more usually, if he’s listening to me: “That’s not funny.”

So it goes with the po-faced and utterly humourless 911. It’s not a fun car. There’s no joie de vivre in its styling and no sitcom at all in that dark and gloomy interior. But put it on the right stage and all that Teutonic fine tuning pays off, because then it starts to deliver fun, and by the skipload. That said, I’ve never much liked the whole 911 thing.

Yes, I’ll pay to see a comedian strut his stuff in the theatre, but what’s the point of socialising with a person who thinks that someone with a bad wig is “a possible source of interesting material”? Am I disappearing up my own backside here? Whatever.

While I respect the ability of the modern Porsche 996 Turbo, I much prefer the madness of Ferrari and the sheer idiocy of Lamborghini. And there’s another thing: life is way, way too short to try to get a handle on the depth and breadth of the 911 range, with its endless variations on a single theme.

All you need to know is that over the years the 911 has become increasingly soft core, with pixelated private parts and silicone breasts. But every so often Porsche produces an adult-rated version that harks back to the hard-core roots. Usually these cars bear the RS badge. But as is the way with the 911, sometimes they don’t.

Whatever the case, every single one of them has been horrid. There was an RS in the mid-1990s that was about as awful as anything I’ve ever driven. I bounced all the way from Balham in south London to Cadwell Park race circuit in Lincolnshire in one, imagining that when I got there I’d find some recompense for the simply dreadful ride and complete lack of creature comforts. But no. After I removed its lead and took off the muzzle it spent the entire afternoon trying to bite my head off.

This was a car that understeered badly every time I went round one particular corner, and then — for no reason at all — would suddenly decide to oversteer. I hated it.

So I really wasn’t expecting much from the GT3, which for those of you who can be bothered to clutter up your heads with this sort of thing, is basically a Carrera 2. That means you don’t get a turbocharger and you don’t get four-wheel drive. And you don’t get bulging wheel arches either, although you do get a bill for £73,000.

Inside it, despite the enormous bill, you don’t get air-conditioning or much in the way of luxury, and instead of back seats there’s some scaffolding, which I suppose could also be used as a roll bar.

Now, you’d be happy about all this minimalism if the end result were flyaway and featherlight. But it isn’t. Because the GT3 has the same body as the stiffer Carrera 4, it actually weighs more than the Carrera 2. I told you the 911 range was a muddle.

What isn’t even remotely muddling, though, is the way this car goes. With 381bhp pumping out of the 3.6 litre flat-six engine in a muscular and seemingly never-ending scream of pure ecstasy, it absolutely flies.

And not just in a straight line either. Like all 911s since the year dot, the heavy engine sits at the back and gives huge traction in a corner, but unlike any 911 I’ve ever driven, there is no punch-in-the-face punchline if you overcook it.

In terms of grip and handling, I don’t mind sticking my neck out here and saying that I’ve never, ever driven anything that even gets close to it. In terms of comedy, it’s Fawlty Towers — honed to perfection.

Bring the new M3 CSL to the party if you like. Bring a 911 Turbo. Bring a 360 Ferrari. Bring anything you want and so long as it costs less than £150,000, I guarantee the GT3 will nuke it.

In a little race I staged with an immensely fast and wonderfully satisfying Aston Martin DB7 GT, the Porsche was a full 10% faster round the lap. That’s 10% faster, as well as being 40% cheaper and probably 98% more reliable too.

Yes, admittedly the GT3 is stiff and a bit jarring over the speed bumps, but it’s (just) on the right side of bearable. Think of it as Stephen Fry — probably a little bit difficult to live with from time to time, but you’d put up with the hard edges for those moments when one bon mot tears your sides literally in half.

The GT3 is not the first 911 I’ve respected. And if truth be told it’s not the first 911 I’ve liked. But although it’s only the eighth most entertaining car from 2003, it is also the first Porsche 911 that I’ve thought long and hard about buying.

VITAL STATISTICS

Model: Porsche 911 GT3
Engine type: Six-cylinder, 3600cc
Power: 381bhp @ 7400rpm
Torque: 285 lb ft @ 5000rpm
Transmission: Six-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Suspension: (front and rear) Double wishbone fully adjustable raised suspension
Tyres: (front) 235/40 ZR18 (rear) 295/30 ZR18
Acceleration: 0 to 62mph: 4.5sec
Top speed: 191mph
Price: £72,750
Verdict: You don't need humour when you're this hard core

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