It should be a rather embarrassing relic, the VXR8: a car so far removed from the economic and environmental Zeitgeist that it'd be no surprise to find it propping up the bar, telling slightly racist jokes and pinching ladies' backsides, before staggering off home to complain about how much better things were before turbochargers and direct injection and global warming.So that's 6.2 litres and 425bhp of hormone-fuelled rage, up 14bhp on the old VXR8. Chuck in some bright white paint, 20-inch alloys and a pair of tailpipes big enough to lose small children in, and you've got yourself a super-saloon to provoke more disapproving stares than Jonathan Ross cavorting naked through a Press Complaints Commission meeting. Though the bigger engine doesn't cut the VXR8's 0-60mph time, mid-range punch is noticeably improved, meaning you can now happily lollop around in almost-subtle short-shifting fashion, pretending you actually do care about emissions or, y'know, other people. Fear not, though, the VXR8 is still hellish quick when you give up that pretence. Traction levels remain trivial, but it gets slidey in such a gentle, progressive way that you don't feel like it's trying to kill you (much) while the steering and gearchange have a pleasing weightiness. Oh, and the new exhausts sound like the early throes of an interplanetary disaster.