A n00b's Guide To Racer Special Editions

DON’T: Try to polish a turd

The Fiat group owns Ferrari, as well as Maserati and Alfa Romeo. Good for them. In the bad old days when Ferrari ran away with F1 for five years on the spin, Fiat decided to celebrate with a Schumacher Edition car. After rummaging around the showroom, the best they could come up with were 200 autographed and red-painted 170bhp Stilos, which are to a Golf GTi or Focus ST what Johnny English Reborn is to Skyfall. I wonder if Mercedes will do a special edition to mark Schuey’s comeback? A broken-down A-class, perhaps?

DO: Have a clear link with the racer

We like a good performance SUV here at Car Throttle. The Range Rover Sport is an oldie but a goodie, and the Porsche Cayenne GTS is just about as good as it gets for, as Clarkson puts it, ‘a tank GTI’. The Infiniti FX50 Vettel Edition is a tricky one, though. Yes, it looks crazy cool, and its carbon wings, mean black wheels and Alcantara interior are downright lush. I can’t fault the 5.0-litre 420bhp V8 either – who would? But the link is way off. Seb’s Red Bull uses a Renault engine. Renault are shag buddies with Nissan, and share oily bits in their roads cars. And Nissan owns Infiniti, which sells posh cars to loaded people who wouldn’t have a Nissan. That's marketing department - one, common sense - nil.

DON’T: Miss the point by a mile

Mercedes’ first crack at commemorating the greatest drive ever (Sir Stirling Moss, 1955, Mille Miglia) was to give the world’s most hated supercar – the SLR McLaren – more unnecessary power, dodgy wheels, and ‘722’ badging to commemorate Moss’ 7:22am race start time. Proof, if it were needed, that you can’t polish a turd. But you can roll one in glitter. Is that harsh? Maybe. I actually like the SLR, despite its confused purpose, and the 722 has got bad-ass cool. I just wish it’d been called ‘SLR RS’, or ‘SLS Plus’, and left the Moss analogy well alone.

DO: Try again until you nail it

Ah, that’s better. Merc’s second go at hat-tipping Moss was a gorgeous retro-futuristic effort with real attention to detail. The SLR Stirling Moss was open-topped, like his 300SL, and copied the old timer’s air intake, vent and exhaust designs. The cockpit too was stripped right back, helping the whole Speed Racer-lookalike weigh 200kg less than a normal 1750kg SLR. Add in 641bhp, no windscreen and a 220mph top speed, and you’re onto a winner.

My favourite fact about the £660k SLR Stirling Moss? An Arabian supercar fan bought three: one for himself, one for his wife, and one for his 18-year old son. Quite a first car, that.

DON’T: Just add badges

Sebastians aren’t half good at driving. Vettel’s a triple F1 champ, and Frenchman Seb Loeb might just be the greatest bloke ever to hold a steering wheel. He’s won eight WRC titles, on the spin, though you might not have noticed because no-one watches WRC any more. Maybe that’s why Citroen, whose cars Loeb has powered to glory year after year, added nothing more than ‘C4 by Loeb’ badges to its quirky hatch to celebrate their man’s success. No more poke, no 4WD, not even a body kit. Just badges. Merde.

DO: Stick to what you’re good at

Back when rally was cool and Mitsubishi Evos were cooler, the Tommi Mäkinen Edition was probably the coolest of the lot. For the 2000 Evo TME, Mitsubishi didn’t try and make the Evo plush, or supercar-fast. Instead, they teamed that iconic paint job with lightweight white Enkei alloys, a bigger, ventier front bumper, bespoke Recaro seats and a claimed 276bhp. Though as with all fast Japanese machinery, it surely topped 300 as standard, and few of the beasts stayed untouched for long. The TME shows just how cool a car can be when its maker takes what’s already a storming platform, and adds garnish that improves the whole package. Of all the cars in this list, it’s the one I’d take home.

What about you?