Twelve years ago, I appeared on This Morning with Richard and Judy. I was interviewed by the first half of that celebrated daytime double act on the perimeter road of Liverpool's Albert Dock, just outside the studio doors. On cue, I rolled up in a Porsche 911 Turbo and got out to talk to Madeley about supercars and a book I'd written on the subject.

The few friends who admitted to watching daytime television told me it was a fascinating confrontation and that, whatever impression of friendliness I may have thought I was conveying, I started off edgy and quickly became transparently annoyed by the coiffured inquisitor's bizarre and banal line of questioning.

Only two things really stay with me from that day. One, that I was talking to a man wearing more make-up than his wife. And two, his audacious 'let's cut to the chase' opener.

'Take this Porsche,' quipped Madley with a characteristic flick of the head, 'it's just a penis substitute isn't it?' I can't remember if he actually said 'penis', but I do remember thinking that, given the decidedly stubby dimensions of the 911's bonnet, he'd probably just revealed something about himself that, on reflection, he may have preferred not to.

Quick as a flash I looked dumbfounded. Then, since I had to answer the question, I said: 'Not really; it's too short. Most people think more along the lines of the Jaguar E-type.' I've never been entirely sure if he got my drift before moving on to the next question, but the needle between us was soon glinting in the sunshine. After a while he started to take the mick out of my pronounciation of 'Porsche', mockingly emphasising the 'sha' second syllable. I guess my fate was sealed that day, I was not the next Jeremy Clarkson. Vivian gets drawn into embarrassing car-as-penis exchange with gaffe-prone cult morning TV presenter. I could have handled it better. Perhaps I should have milked the idea, put the E-type centre stage and gone large on the whole 'sexiest car ever made' angle.

It would have worked. I'm more certain of this now than ever before because Clarkson himself has just named (on his latest video) the 100 greatest cars of the last century, and the greatest of all is not the phallically-challenged 911 Turbo I picked as supercardom's greatest hit (the Porsche is number two according to JC) but the incomparably thrusting Jaguar.

Or, as Austin Powers perhaps more pertinently envisioned it, the Shaguar. Fine gag, that. You don't really want to wade through all the stuff about the 40-year-old roadster having become the world's most famous sportscar icon or being 'a kinetic automotive sculpture', do you? Shaguar kinda nails it, tells you all you need to know.

A very Clarkson view of the world, to be sure. In much the same way that the McLaren F1 doesn't even make it into the list at all. Controversy with knobs on is Jezza. There's always the feeling he's playing to the gallery (which he undoubtedly is). But, in this case, there's more to it. A lot more.

JC's been cute. He didn't choose any old E-type, and heaven knows there are plenty of those around to receive his ultimate accolade. He chose a ΂£100,000 E-type 4.2 drophead with Sport specification, meticulously, lovingly, expensively made by Eagle E-types.

And that's where our story really begins, one foggy Tuesday morning at Eagle's HQ in leafiest rural East Sussex, aka E-type Central. By the time I arrive, evo road test assistant Ian Laine and photographer Gus Gregory are supping hot tea and surveying the Aston Martin DB7 Vantage Volante (΂£102K, twelve cylinders, 420bhp, 185mph) that Ian has just driven from Newport Pagnell to keep the day's activities honest. And the Aston, for the first time ever in my experience, is looking decidedly 'so what?'. The car many have dubbed the most beautiful of its generation is having a bad hair day and a half. And all because it's parked next to an almost surgically immaculate dark blue Eagle E-type 4.2 drophead with biscuit-coloured leather upholstery, the very car from Clarkson's video. And it's utterly, utterly gorgeous.

The effect is devastating. The same as if George Clooney were to stand beside Jeremy. It's made worse because, without the E-type context, the Ian Callum-designed Aston is a genuine stunner. Next to the Jag, though, not only does it look feebly endowed but rather sober and conservative, a kind of prim pastiche.

Wow. What sort of car is it that can do that to the Aston? As Clarkson said, applying yet another bootful of throttle and a bite of opposite lock on the wide expanses of Bruntingthorpe's airfield: 'This is the Eagle E-type. It's totally re-built. Improved with better brakes, wider tyres and better cooling. They make only two a year. It may be old, but it sliced through the wind of time with such aplomb that it's burst into the 21st century looking like a teenager.'

Eagle managing director Henry Pearman is unsurpringly delighted. 'Few people would argue the E-type deserved to be in the top ten,' he says, 'but for the Eagle to emerge as Jeremy's best car ever made was beyond our wildest dreams. It really vindicates all the effort we have put into developing and producing the car.'

I knew Henry back in the late '80s when Eagle was little more than a hobby and he traded mostly in exotic classics. He sold me a Rover V8-engined Reliant Scimitar GTE with Cherry Bomb silencers, possibly the sole virtue of which was that it was the cheapest car on his lot. Despite this, we remained friends and he became a generous source of classic Ferraris and Maseratis for me to write about in Autocar.

But then he focused, and seriously, on the E-type side of the business. And today Eagle's mission is unequivocal... to produce the most driveable and desirable car ever made. What's more, it claims to have succeeded. In a nutshell, the Eagle is the fastest roadgoing E-type ever produced, with over 2000 man hours of 'care, craft and finely honed engineering' lavished on every single example. There are four levels of basic specification (Classic, GT, Sport, Super Sport) but with a bespoke set-up for each customer and Eagle's assurance that the finished car is 'more dependable and satisfying to own than either the esteemed original or those restored conventionally'.

Just 17 have been built since 1993, about half of them staying in the UK. Pearman says the typical buyer has tried most of the exotics and found they lacked character. The Eagle offers them all the character and excitement that most modern cars lack, but with the comfort, reliability and safety you wouldn't find in a classic. And they get driven too, clocking up surprisingly high mileages, though Pearman doesn't recommend winter use; salt attacks the plated suspension components and aluminium castings.

A typical customer is John McLaren. He bought his Eagle E-type six years ago. 'I've driven lots of contemporary exotics ΂- Ferrari 550 and 355, Porsches, Skylines and the like.' he says, 'and had a fully restored original E-type. I reckon the Eagle has a double helping of evoness and couples it with Porsche reliability.

'You can just jump into it and drive it to Geneva and it feels unburstable. And you don't get negative reactions as you do with some modern exotics. People always want to let you out of junctions. When I come back to where I've parked it there are always people around it who want to talk about it. They often compliment me on how well I've kept it!

'I can't ever see myself selling it. It's not so much a car as a way of life.'

So what exactly goes in to an Eagle E-type? Build begins with the engine, gearbox, axle and suspension from an original car. These are carefully dismantled and reconstructed, made effectively as good as new, before being mated with a new steel monocoque body, constructed at Eagle and incorporating the latest anti-corrosion techniques.

Each car is assembled as close as possible to the original spec, using new or as-new-condition parts. But areas such as suspension, braking, cooling, heating, fuel supply, lighting and electrical systems are upgraded to meet modern standards of reliability and performance.

Traditional E-type weakspots get fixed, too. The exhaust system, for example, is changed to stainless steel; brass is used for the header tank and any rubber parts are replaced with silicone, polyurethane or neoprene.

At the end of it all, and there are over 100 individual reliability and performance upgrades, Eagle E-types retain their original period identity and registration, and are supplied with a numbered Eagle chassis plaque, Jaguar and Eagle handbooks and, perhaps more importantly, a three-year warranty.

The dark blue car that lit Clarkson's fire and is about to fight the Aston is a Sport, which means it gets everything the GT has, including fully lightened and balanced engine, electronic ignition, high performance spark plug leads and twin competition fuel pumps, but with much greater emphasis on chassis dynamics and cornering ability. The main items are extra wide offset wheels with modern performance tyres, revised front and rear suspension geometry, rose jointed rear axle location and anti-roll bar links, adjustable front ride height, four-pot front callipers and oversize rears, vented discs front and rear and a quick-ratio steering rack. All of which needs to be balanced, of course, with even more grunt.

So roll on the individually programmed high-tech ignition, big-valve cylinder head, sport camshafts and larger bore exhaust (with a choice of silencers). That's 288bhp (in real terms, making due allowance for Jaguar's original 'gross' output figure, about 80bhp extra) and more torque than you can shake a stick at. Power-to-weight? About 240bhp-per-ton, a smidge better than the Volante's 228bhp/ton.

The Aston has already been made to feel ugly. It must be itching for some payback. First we have to find roads that aren't fog-bound. Tricky, but down on Brighton's Devil's Dyke, at least the mist is thinner. I drive there in the Eagle, Ian following in the Aston. It isn't much of a hardship. The Jag's cockpit is snug, efficient, fighter-like: all crinkle-finish surfaces, bare aluminium, precision toggle switches and paper-smooth leather. It almost seems as if I should tap the glass-faced dials into twitching life, like a Spitfire pilot preparing to engage the enemy. They're big and plainly marked, never more than the flick of an eye away.

That breathed-on 4.2-litre XK twin-cam straight six with its big-valve head is simultaneously effortless and brutal. Prod the accelerator pedal hard in first and the Eagle stabs a hole in the air then bathes it with the hollow bark of its exhaust. It should hit 60mph in around five seconds and 100mph in the low teens (read 4.9 and 12sec for the Aston).

Given half a chance, its long, muscled snout spaghetti-sucks short straights so vigorously you have to re-synchronise your senses. The torque-rich thump in the back is a warning, but until you match your rhythm to that of the car, bends arrive too quickly and you end up working the brakes too hard. Fortunately they don't buckle, remaining firm, immensely powerful and seemingly unfadeable. Get it right and satisfaction builds like compound interest in Richard Branson's savings account.

Yet the abiding impression is of the engine's deep lungs and mechanical purity, a euphonic delivery that contrasts starkly with the sharp, metallic edge of an Italian V12 (though the Aston's, from recollection, is softer and more mellifluous). There's an alluring gentility, too. Palm the stubby, leather-frocked gearlever forward into first, ease out the meaty, progressive clutch and the Eagle trickles off at idle without a murmur of dissent.

Into second, then third: the Escort Cosworth-derived five-speeder's shift is easy and snickety, the engine suave and strong. The steering's heavy, almost impossibly so at parking speeds, but very direct and dripping with feel. Grip on these damp roads is a revelation, too, though the incongruous-looking Yokohama AO32Rs have to take much of the credit. Not only do they look wrong, they hang on so tenaciously that nearly all of that legendary E-type 'driftability' has been jettisoned. Impressive in a 'I Can't Believe It's An E-type' kind of way, but not nearly enough fun. Eagle's development engineer Paul Brace says most people go for the standard Pirelli P6000s which not only look the part but slide sooner and more benignly. Which is much more like it.

But as the day winds on, it's clear that the Eagle's extreme rubber is giving the Aston embarrassing problems. Put bluntly, the E-type has the legs of the Vantage ΂- all 420bhp of it. It's every bit as quick in a straight line, can carry more speed into bends and has superior drive out of them. Braking power is on a par, too, but with more positive pedal feel. The absence of ABS simply isn't an issue.

Yes, the DB7 is easier to drive, quieter, more refined and more comfortable. And yes, its V12 engine is subtle and charismatic beyond even the charms of the Eagle's XK straight six. But the rather startling fact is that the E-type does most of the important things better. It doesn't help the Aston's case that its steering is so vague and woolly about the straight ahead. Or that its gearchange is slow and rubbery. Or, of course, that the Jag simply feels faster, grippier, tauter and more agile. It connects in a way that the DB7 can't quite manage.

A double whammy, then. The Aston is licked for looks and locomotion by a car old enough to be its grandad. As we drift back to Eagle HQ through the cloying evening crawl, I can't quite believe it either. The Aston DB7 Vantage Volante is a very good car. But there's just something about the E-type.

Clarkson hasn't gone mad; he knew it too. A Shaguar-shape in your Calvin Kleins is very nice, but one on the drive is even better.