LONDON: Car enthusiasts can have their fill of vehicles that met critics approval in the April issue of BBC Top Gear Magazine which is on sale.

Mercedes-Benz has scooped three of the magazines twelve annual Top Gear Awards. Peugeot and Honda both won two but the star awards. Best Driver's Car and overall Car of the Year 2003, have gone to the Ford Focus RS, Ford's new 'hot hatchback'.

Every year the Top Gear test team drives over 300 new cars hundreds of thousands of miles on roads and tracks in Britain and all over the world before coming to its conclusions on the winners. The television version of the franchise airs on BBC World.

Though the sporty Ford Focus RS has been a Top Gear favourite since it was launched last autumn it had to beat off stiff competition from cars as diverse as the Ferrari Enzo supercar to the little Honda Jazz for the overall title.

BBC Top Gear magazine editor, Kevin Blick said, "It's a car that proves driving can still be fun and at a time when all we hear is about new restrictions on the motorist that is important to remember."

BBC Top Gear magazine is Britain's best-selling general motoring monthly, with a circulation of 144,104 (ABC: Jul - Dec 2002). It is published by BBC Magazines - a division of BBC Worldwide Ltd.