Stop me if you think you've heard this one before

IT'S not often you get to enjoy an epiphany, but I've just had one on my lunch break. I know what the best car in the world is.

The best car in the world is like the best footballer in the world or the best song in the world; you reckon you know what it is, but some bloke in the pub always knows better. But I'm going to stick my neck out on this one, because I reckon I've found a Bohemian Rhapsody-singing George Best on four wheels.

Firstly, it's important to remember there's lots of hugely impressive cars that can't be considered candidates, because they're terrible in at least one aspect. The Peugeot 207CC I drove last week doesn't have any rear legroom. The Toyota IQ's boot is tiny. The Morgan has a confusing handbrake. The best car in the world has to be fantastic - or at least very good - absolutely everywhere.

Fifteen years ago Autocar reckoned my very own motor - the original Mini - was on the mark, as it's a masterpiece of packaging but stylish enough to be a Sixties icon. I love it, but it fails because it's too small, too slow and too unreliable. Next!

Anything covered these days by Practical Classics is out, because the best car in the world has to exude excellence every single day, and it's hard to do that if it's been rotting in a barn since 1994. If I had to prescribe one single car on the entire population of Britain, it wouldn't be something which gets from A to B via the AA.

For ages I thought the ideal candidate for the automotive equivalent of John Lennon's Imagine was actually the BMW 5-Series. I've never liked them because it's still a bit of a Filofax car, carried around by middle-aged executives on their way to causing another credit crunch. But can you think of anything a 5-Series does badly? Exactly.

In fact the one car which does most things brilliantly - and is very good at everything else - is in fact the humble Ford Focus. Exciting it isn't, but I've never driven a bad one, and it does absolutely everything you ask of it.

I invite blokes and bloke-esses from pubs everywhere to tell me I'm wrong.

What is the best car in the world? Let David Simister know he's wrong by leaving a comment...