Posted by Tom Ford at 5:30PM on Wednesday 07 February, 2007 6 Comments
Bear with me here because this argument is going to end up full of massive holes in the logic and probably end up with me disagreeing with myself somewhere along the line, but I reckon that I'm changing the way I feel about fast cars.
Mainly because I've started becoming obsessed with little buzzy cars that don't go very fast. Which is most unlike me, seeing as I hate competing unless I have a 3:1 power advantage.
I'll be up front and bellow at the top of my lungs that I'm not jaded. Or at least I don't think so. I've driven some of the fastest cars in the world very fast and they are not boring. BUT, they do get a little bit corrupting.
A very fast car these days is extremely easy to drive very quickly - they might be hard to extract the final percentage from, but on the whole bring the speed capability much further down into the skill envelope. You just don't have to be that good to make them do stuff that will make you look like a hero, or land you in prison.
Now I've come to the conclusion that I actually really get off on strange little cars that require more driver input. The new Fiat Panda 100-horsepower is a case in point; it hasn't got much power, but you have to work hard to play.
Nothing comes for free in cars like this, you can't laze about and then rely on 500bhp to suck the horizon through the back window. I've had joyous times in a Daihatsu Sirion Rallye, and even a stock Toyota Aygo on a wet and deserted run through 3am London.
I saw a young lad the other day in a Peugeot 106 Rallye (remember them?) and he had a daft grin on his face as he followed me around a set of roundabouts quite obviously on the doorhandles. We were doing all of 40mph.
I remember Paul Horrell used to have some random variant as a long-term test car, and I can remember thinking that it looked like far too much hard work. But now I think I get it.
Yes, it's horses for courses, I do 90 per cent motorway trawling and my Citroen C6 is where it's at for my driving profile. But if I wanted to enjoy (i)driving(/i), then I think I'd be better off in something with balance, marginal grip and no power.
I laughed my head off last winter when it snowed in my wife's BMW 318i Touring because I spent an afternoon drifting on an airfield. I think I used all of 40bhp. Mrs F got irritated because I had decided to indoctrinate my three-month-old son into the world of powersliding, but we had fun.
So that's where it's at. Some of my mates' best driving stories are about old bangers with no brakes, no power and no style. About Allegros and Metros and Minis. About Fiestas and Golfs and the occasional Bug or Morris Minor. Don't freak because you don't have 200bhp plus. Just find something that puts a smile on your face.
6 Comments for "No grip, big grin"
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I'm with you on this one. I have a woefully underpowered car (OK, I'll say it, I bought one of the first Smarts to cross the pond), but I have a lot more fun in it, even though I'm not risking my driver's licence. I thought about getting something more powerful, but I realised how much more fun I was having pushing my car to its limits. And it's just too much fun to see the look on someone's face when I pass them on the highway :)
I had fun in a POS 89 Ford Festiva here in the States. I drove it like it was free, cause it was. I drove the hell out of it for two years, until it caught fire. I'd get another one but it seems weird to pay money for one.
Most of my favourite car memories were in my Suzuki Swift (US market). It's impossible to do over 83mph in, so it's perfect if you don't want to risk getting ticketed. It's also a hoot to take it up for 40 in second gear.
Amen brother :)
I currently have a 10-year-old 1.3 Micra and it's a hoot on country roads. Only last week I spent eight miles of twisty B-road hanging it off the tail end of a slammed Lupo GT that had previously decided to overtake me dangerously because it assumed I'd hold it up. Small cars may have lower limits, but you can get to those limits *really* quickly, and balancing on that edge is where the fun starts.
This is exactly what we need, an underpowered car that trains its user to be a good driver. Not an over-tech, over-engineered, and over-power car that allows even nine-year-old kids to drive fast; they can do that with PS3 anyways.
This is exactly what we need, an underpowered car that trains its user to be a good driver. Not an over-tech, over-engineered, and over-power car that allows even nine-year-old kids to drive fast; they can do that with PS3 anyways.