If we're talking a rumble in roadsterdom, the car with palandromic styling has acquired an aura of invincibility comparable to 400m runner Michael Johnson's before boredom and lack of opposition forced him to chuck it in. Boxster's domination is close to absolute. It has an unerring knack of making rivals look not just second-rate but also a little grubby and frayed round the edges. Not even the Lotus Elise, which shades the Porsche for pristine handling brilliance, can live with it as the complete package.

It's hardly Porsche's fault. The 3.2-litre, 252bhp Boxster S is simply the best ΂£38,150 mid-engined two-seater it knows how to make. And the best roadster Porsche knows how to make has to be pretty good. Better in some ways ΂- thanks to where the engine's mounted ΂- than the 911. But not, perhaps understandably, as exciting to drive. Hang onto that thought. It will become an issue.

Anyway, cakewalk's off. On this occasion, the finely honed and meticulously calibrated German benchmark is up against a different and altogether more dangerous kind of foe. In fact, whip that towel off the recliner, someone; the Boxster will have to fight this through to a finish. The towel might be needed to dab up some blood. Or even to throw into the ring.

Killer timing. The Brits aren't just coming, they're here. The three brawny hombres ΂- all with oil rig bore-hole exhaust pipes, all with deeply serious but starkly original takes on big- cube performance thuggery, all intent on intimidating the oppo ΂- have compelling, charismatic presence. It's the hardest line-up since the cast of Snatch.

Let's start with the newest. So new it squeaks. Ongoing tweaks are still being applied to the first truly representative example of the Jensen S-V8 as I arrive at the Speke factory (a stone's throw from Liverpool airport). This is how the story begins: collect S-V8 and drive it to evo's secret battleground just the other side of the Welsh border.

And as the silver Jensen on the forecourt glints sleekly in the morning sun, the significance of the moment is tangible. This really is it, an all-new Jensen with a V8 engine and cor-blimey styling ΂- the only kind that's ever been any good. It has survived wrangles, cash droughts, even a late change of company management. But now, three years on from the debut of the concept at the British Motor Show, Jensen's contribution to the world of hairy-chested, open-top, two-seater sports cars is a 4.6-litre Ford Cobra V8-engined, 325bhp, 254bhp-per-ton, 160mph, ΂£39,650 reality. The 11 dealers are primed and there are already 300 names in the orderbook.

Great. Lob me the keys and I'll be on my way. My request provokes a mild sense of consternation from the blokes I've been sharing a pot of tea and packet of digestives with. In short, Mike Gibbs (design engineer) and Norman Childs (PR) want to come, too. They want to chaperone their baby, field any foibles as they arise with answers and explain where and why the customer cars will be finessed. Fine. At least it will be until they see who we've invited to dinner.

Meanwhile, forty minutes away on the Horseshoe Pass just outside Llangollen, John Hayman and Trudy Thompson are getting the measure of each other in a friendly, pre-group- test joust. John's weapon of choice, maybe a little unfairly he thinks, is the car he pitched up in, the sublimely capable Boxster S. It's a machine he knows well, up to and including the limit of its formidable cornering power. Trudy came with the Morgan Aero 8. In fact, what with Trudy being Morgan's works race driver, it's her ΂£49,950 company car. A tasty enough perk, you might think, to plant a permanent cat-in-cream-theft number on the young lady's countenance. But no. Trudy's business talents have taken her fast car (and bike) buying habits way beyond Aero 8 territory. The smile on her face stems more from the embarrassment she's about to inflict on a member of the evo road test team, namely Mr Hayman.

However well John thinks he knows the Porsche, Trudy knows the Morgan better. John at least knows enough about the Aero 8 to realise that he's on a hiding to nothing on any road that looks remotely straight. He knows, for instance, that its 4.6-litre BMW V8 probably delivers a little more than the quoted 286bhp and that, with its radical bonded aluminium tub and lightweight quasi-racer wishbone suspension, it weighs just 1000kg, giving a power-to-weight of 291bhp per ton. (The Porsche's 252bhp has to contend with 1295kg, which equates to 197bhp/ton). His plan is to blitz Trudy and her cross-eyed steed through the twisty bits, to press home the irresistible advantage of a mid-engined balance and Porsche chassis technology where it really matters.

So Trudy keeps a respectful distance from the Boxster's wrung-out butt down the straights. And closes right up in the turns. To the point where John would be able see the whites of her eyes in his rear view mirror if he wasn't having to concentrate so hard to keep the Boxster on the island. Anyone who's ever watched the grief that lanky, wide-eyed Dee Dee gives her waist-high brother Dexter in Dexter's Laboratory (it's a kid's cartoon) will understand what's going on here. Height difference is about right, too.

The event is recounted by an enlightened JH over a round of beef and mustard sandwiches when we meet in the car park of the improbably named Ponderosa Cafe at the top of Horsebridge Pass. Porsche... Morgan... Jensen... rollercoaster Welsh roads. The Penny's dropped for Mike and Norman; this is more than a photo call.

If it's a problem, they're keeping it to themselves. Mike's more interested in crawling over every inch of the Morgan and pumping Trudy for engineering info. Norman seems pleased enough to reflect that the S-V8 is the most powerful car in the car park and the one attracting the lion's share of attention from sundry hikers, bikers and self-confessed petrol-heads. It's the sort of car Austin Powers would call a 'handsome beast'. What Norm doesn't know, and I can't bring myself to tell him, is that by this time tomorrow a production-ready TVR Tamora (not the red prototype Richard Meaden drove in evo 32) will have completed the group and we won't be able to see the roadside sheep for the flying fur.

I can't think of a good reason why the Jensen shouldn't hold its own on core ability. Because the best thing about the S-V8 ΂- apart from the way it looks ΂- is its dynamic composure. A car with a 4.6-litre, 32-valve V8 developing 325bhp (Jensen's gunning for 0-60mph in under 5sec and over 160mph) needs poise and the S-V8 has heaps. The way it grips, points and sponges up all sorts of bumps and dips is admirable.

I'd be inclined to dial in even more firmness. There are a couple of occasions on downhill hairpins when the loaded front wheel momentarily runs out of suspension travel and the tyre kisses the inside of the wheelarch. Experimental dampers, says Mike. Already fixed.

Between Speke and Llangollen, the S-V8 makes the case for its strengths ΂- heavy, hard-edged (rather than merely effortless) American V8 stonk, quick-helmed and grippy yet supple and poised chassis, comfortable seats, ergonomically-sussed cabin and chunky Jensen design jewellery ΂- without making a meal of the stuff that isn't quite right yet. It's all small: the reflection-prone angle of the instrument binnacles and the size of the blue 'Jensen' logos on the dials (which will be made more upright and smaller respectively), the gappy panel fits and numerous squeaks and rattles, those experimental dampers (no time to fit the standard-spec ones) and a starter button that sometimes didn't (temperamental relay).

Point is, Jensen's take on beefcake roadster with all the trimmings hangs together coherently. It's a bit suave, it's a bit savage. If Aston (Ford) ever bought TVR, this is the sort of car it might make.

I turn my back against the wind to light a cigarette and before the first puff of blue-grey smoke streaks in the breeze, Mike's nipped into the Morgan's passenger seat next to Trudy. He wants a hit of whatever it was that humbled team Boxster-Hayman and, remarkably, hasn't yet deciphered that wicked twinkle in the girl's eye. As his head is flung back into the seat to the accompanying yelp of 225/40 ZR18 rubber and a nadge of opposite lock, I slip behind the wheel of the Boxster ΂- and drive in the opposite direction.

Apart from anything else (the Dee-Dee-bashes-Dexter re-enactment was bad enough), it's the more interesting leg of the Pass and I'm only after a brief refresher in what makes the Boxster S such a paragon. Initially, it seems almost ridiculously refined and comfortable for a sports car, even measured against the touring-orientated moves of the Jensen. But the impression is swiftly engulfed by the more powerful feeling of mechanical efficiency and structural integrity. For a soft-top, the body is amazingly stiff, investing both handling and ride with terrific basic stability and composure. Not even the latest 911 can quite match this mix of agility, fluency and control.

Confidence builds swiftly. But not, ironically, as completely as it does in the plain vanilla (and ΂£7000 cheaper) 2.7 Boxster. True, body motions are brilliantly controlled and contribute to a ride that dispatches the whole panoply of pits, pocks and pimples with something approaching disdain. But, for all its bump-filtering finesse, there's an edginess on the limit ΂- a will-it/won't it vacillation between neutrality and incipient oversteer ΂- that plants a seed of doubt in the driver's mind. The base Boxster, with its smaller wheels, feels subtly but significantly more benign in the same situation. And so, I'm reasonably sure, did Trudy in the Morgan.

Can't deny it, the longer I drive the Boxster the more I miss the elasticity of the Jensen's big V8: its torquey thump out of tight right- handers, its ability to overtake an entire roadtrain of traffic without dropping out of fifth, the hollow, hard-blat timbre of its exhaust note ΂- against which the Boxster's pale 911 imitation (satisfying though it is) doesn't quite hack it. Instant gratification, maybe, but there's nothing wrong with that. Performance is quickly becoming the most addictive drug in this test.

As dusk falls, two clear stretches of dual carriageway between roundabouts en route to our overnight stop in Chester peel back another layer of perspective on the Aero 8's bulging consignment. Mike and Norm have spirited the Jensen back to Speke so it can make an early- morning brochure beauty-shot session. Dee Dee and Dexter have cosied up in the Boxster and are long gone. Which leaves me to squeeze behind the Morgan's beautiful, leather-wrapped MotoLita wheel ΂- initially horrified by its close proximity to my chest ΂- for the 60-mile strop back to the hotel.

When the moment comes, straight-line thrust is actually the last thing on my mind. Having been all but mesmerised by everything from the exquisitely contrasting textures of the milled aluminium dash and real timber door panels to the extraordinarily flat ride, from the easy action of the six-speed gearbox and creamy burble of the V8 to the limber reflexes of the broad-shouldered chassis, I'm not really paying attention when photographer Andy M, who's in front because he has the map, nails evo's long- term BMW M Coupe exiting the first roundabout. Why would I? The last Morgan I drove was a Plus 8 about ten years ago. It had the hardest ride I'd ever experienced and wasn't even that fast. So right now I'm in shock. I knew my preconceptions would be shattered by the Aero 8, but I hadn't bargained on this level of devastation.

The rate at which the M Coupe's ugly clenched arse pulls away from the Morgan's never-ending bonnet suddenly reminds me why it's probably the most accelerative car BMW makes. But not, as it turns out, its most accelerative engine. That's supported between the front wheels of the Aero 8 which, when I finally get round to slotting down a cog and acquainting the pedal with the metal, slowly but inexorably starts to eat into the 50 metre gap. Just to make sure, I shadow Andy through the next roundabout and open up at about the same time on the way out. Static gap. Except there's air between the bottom of the Morgan's accelerator pedal and the floor. Morgan says merely that the Aero 8 goes sub-five to sixty. M Coupe drivers, as an ego protection mechanism, would probably prefer to put it in the low fours. Quick as the Jensen is (sickeningly so from the Boxster driver's perspective) it's no match for the Aero 8, either.

So the Boxster's brilliant but on the ropes, the Jensen's almost miraculously strong and sorted straight out of the box, and the blisteringly swift, fine-handling Morgan is an honest-to-God revelation. At the start of the final morning, Porsche's hopes of breezing this one are in tatters.

And then the Tamora turns up. It's colder today and there's rain in the air. Norman has already made it back to the Pondarosa in the Jensen and assumes there's just photography to be finished. When Ben Samuelson and the Tamora rumble into the car park like a bass-bin on wheels, a new level of bemusement flushes into Norm's expression and the thought that the status quo might once again be sliced to shreds crosses all our minds. There should be a gunfight at the very least, given our location.

'Entry level' is horribly misleading. The new ΂£36,500 entry-level TVR does 0-60mph in 4.4sec and 0-100mph in a smidgen over 9sec. It has a power-to-weight ratio of 338bhp per ton. Never mind the Boxster, a 911 GT3 would come off second best in a duel away from the lights.

If you read Richard Meaden's drive in the red prototype (evo 32), you'll know the concept. In a nutshell, it's Tuscan Lite. Same wheelbase but much tighter external dimensions/overhangs and simplified interior with minimalist instrumentation and fewer alloy castings. Same Speed Six engine too (developing 350bhp at 7200rpm) but with some of the torque sucked out for enhanced driveability in the wet, especially on greasy urban roundabouts. Similarly ultra-quick steering but with more linear-feeling electronic (rather than mechanical) assistance and 16in alloys shod with reasonably modest 225/50 Bridgestone S-O2s ΂- far more camber-friendly than the Tuscan's 18-inchers. Smaller, handier, more agile and chuckable. Every bit as ballistic.
Ben and Norm exchange glances across the car park. Thankfully, they're cordial. Turns out the two are old acquaintances and, in the broader scheme of things, playing for the same side. Ben might even have cause to be grateful. The Jensen has softened the Boxster up, exposed deficiencies in the grunt-gratification loop that the German car's fabulous mid-engined chassis can't quite cover. The smaller, lither Tamora should open up the wound.

And it does. As a pure driving machine, the Tamora is simply the business. It accelerates, corners and brakes with more resolve and precision than the standard Tuscan, and even makes the almost intolerably good Aero 8 feel vaguely soft and laid-back. The urgency with which it dials up three figures (or two on the abbreviated speedo graphics ΂- 10 equals 100) is faintly absurd. And the absence of harshness in its ride is remarkable when you consider the degrees of suspension-stiffening to which some rivals resort to achieve not even 70 per cent of the TVR's cornering ability. For such a powerful, light car, it feels uncannily accessible and neat with hyper-clean responses, a tremendous sense of immediacy in everything it does, and wonderful, exploitable balance. The Boxster is easier to drive but feels less alive and has a narrower repertoire, the Jensen is more expansive and more comfortable but less focused and incisive. And only the Morgan feels anything like as rapid.

There's more development to go, but Tamora gives every indication of being the best TVR yet. When Trudy, who's been itching to have a go, returns from a ten- minute blat, it's with a grin as broad as the ventilation slats on the bonnet. And that, knowing Trudy as we now do, says a lot.
It certainly hasn't been a conventional group test, this. And no, the Boxster S isn't blown off the planet by the new superBrits. But its reputation has been damaged. Precision flying only takes you so far. If you really want to get your rocks off, you need a British sports car. The new order has arrived.