Jason Barlow: Just how much power does a human need?

Here's a question for the new year. Does absolute power corrupt? Absolutely. The Germans, for as long as I can remember producers of the world's best cars, have addled their brains in pursuit of it. A whole new generation of rock-hard rocket-ships has appeared in the past couple of years or so, all obsessed with defiantly raising a fore-finger in the time-honoured fashion at their key rivals.

Perfectly ordinary German saloon cars now ripple with power, wheelarches grotesquely swollen, jaw-lines stretched cartoonishly taut, like Desperate Dan's. If Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime looked like a condom stuffed full of walnuts, well that'll give you some idea of the visual punch packed by the Audi RS6. And it used to be such a noble-looking car.

One-upmanship? Quite literally. The BMW M3 has 343bhp. The Audi S4 mysteriously ends up with 344. It's not as good as its arch-rival, but I'm almost past caring. Over in Stuttgart we find Mercedes-Benz, a company so power-crazedit was too busy out-doing itself to worry about the opposition.

In September last year, I drove every premiership football manager's most beloved chariot, the CL, a big, corpulent coupé lately upgraded to a heroically daft 612bhp. It was the most powerful road car in the company's splendid history. For a week. The Mercdes SLR McLaren stole its thunder exactly seven days later.

Elsewhere, the first Ferrari Enzos have arrived in the country, and Porsche has unveiled its Carrera GT. It's a fabulous car, unlike its philosophically repugnant Cayenne 4x4 brother, but Porsche did it purely for the money by cannily reactivating a still-born Le Mans project. I'm not asking for a Marxist dialectic here, but in the past the profit has flowed from the product rather than the other way round.

It's not something that seems to bother Volkswagen. Custodian of a bewildering array of famous names, it's putting the finishing touches to the ludicrous Bugatti Veyron, the supercar to end all supercars and a project mired in controversy. This thing has 987bhp and a theoretical top speed of 252mph, the stuff of onanistic schoolboy fantasies, but sources suggest its engineers are struggling to make it work.

One deadline for the launch of the Veyron has already been and gone, the next is looming, and still there's no sign of a finished car. It's beginning to look like a prize example of loathsome corporate grandiloquence, something VW can ill-afford. Apparently, it has invested more in the Veyron than it spent on the latest Polo. Which is silly.

If I was smarter, I'd be desperately trying to figure out a way to make money (just a bit, mind you, I'm not greedy) out of a proper, utilitarian little runabout. Ford's neglected Ka is close. Smart is smart, especially the Roadster. Fiat's new Panda is the official car of the year, though I haven't driven it so I don't know whether it lives up to this bumptious accolade.

And there's always the brilliant Nissan Micra, provided you don't mind your more metropolitan friends laughing at you. Small cars are difficult to get right, much more so than big ones, but the Micra, owner of the most unprepossessing name-plate in the business, is a belter. In 2004, small is the new big. And huge horsepower is just so last year.