IN THE words of one very excited staff writer: Only five sleeps to go until Road Test of the Year!

And I don’t blame his schoolboy enthusiasm. Because when you look at the line up we’ve got for this year’s RTOTY, it really is mouth-watering.

Totalling nearly £750,000 worth of metal, our road test special aims to celebrate the most exciting models on sale in UK showrooms this year.

So what have we got lined up? Well, here in no particular order is the full she-bang:

Ferrari 458 Italia

Aston Martin Virage

Porsche 911 GTS Cabriolet

BMW 1M

Audi RS3

Caterham R400

Mini Cooper SD

Excited? Me? Oh my god yes. That’s partly to do with just how hard assembling the line up was.

To be honest it has been a case of harassment on our part. Constant, and unrelentless, wanton pleading, begging and, quite blantantly in some cases, grovelling.

Ferrari finally succumbed to a decade’s worth of hints and decided to let me loose, for FOUR days no less, in their £175,000 458. The keys for that will be firmly in my grasp for the full duration… I’m pulling rank on this one.

The Aston Martin Virage is another car I’m seriously looking forward to driving. The British maker has been represented in two of our three RTOTYs already, but the Virage’s mix of DB9 cool and DBS performance sounds like a compelling package.

I’ve never tested a 911 either so this year’s GTS will be a welcome addition – and by all accounts it’s an awesome bit of kit.

PICK-UP

We won’t get all the cars together until Monday. The road test starts on Saturday when we take five of the cars to our North Wales location, but we have to collect the 458 and Aston Martin at the start of the week.

That’s going to be quite some trip. The plan is to get up at around 4am and take the Porsche to Ferrari’s Slough HQ. Once the jewel of our test is collected we’ll drive to Gaydon and pick up the second star, then head back in convoy with the Porsche to North Wales.

Quite some collection job and the promise of some cracking roads along the way to look forward to. We might even be tempted to take a diversion… via Scotland!

HEAD TO HEAD

I’m also looking forward to pitching the 1M and RS3 against each other. I went on the Beemer launch and Batch did the Audi, so it will be interesting to see whether our initial thoughts are the same when we can jump from car to car.

The last time we had a Caterham it was an R500 – sadly that one didn’t make it to the end of our test. It died at the side of the road after a head gasket gave way.

But until that point it had thrilled everyone who’d dare buckle themselves into the five-point harness so we’re looking forward to a week with another rollerskate rocket. This time it’s the R400.

Oh and there’s a Mini too. Why’s that there? Well, partly because we like a real-world contender to line up against our giants, and partly because Batch is 22, and it’s the only car he’s insured to drive!

Finally, a good reason for getting old…

Our Road Test starts on Saturday until Thursday and we’ll be blogging every day, tweeting and uploading as many videos as the flaky wifi allows. Make sure you stay tuned.

THIS YEAR’s #RTOTY11 IS SPONSORED BY LUXURY FINANCE FIRM BRIDFORD.CO.UK