Fast should mean scary: Tell Me I'm Wrong
Why speed with fear and threat of consequence removed is the definition of 'scary fast'
Ready your accusations of 'quiet news day?' and off we go...
Inspiration for this story stems in part from our farewell drive with the lovely Riviera Blue 997 GT3 that Porsche GB will by now have disposed of from its fleet. If you're the lucky buyer I think I left a pen in the glovebox so if you could post it back to me that'd be great.
Fully engaged
Anyway, the outgoing 997 GT3 is not an easy car to drive fast. Sure, compared with hairy chested Porsches of old when men were men and anyone without the skills of Rohrl could be found exiting backwards through a hedge on the first bend it's a cinch. But these things are relative and, compared with the latest crop of fast cars, the 997 GT3 is a challenging car in which to make progress.
The clutch pedal is fiercely sprung, its engagement window narrow and sudden, the flywheel light and the throttle razor sharp. All of which means nailing that perfect downshift is difficult and quite possibly going to result in an ugly, clutch-melting over-revved blip or a wheel-locking mis-match of revs and roadspeed. The movements and precision required to get it right are millimetric, the muscle memory and coordination to carry it out properly something that takes time to learn and the window in which to do it quite probably very narrow given you've inevitably arrived at the corner considerably faster than you intended.
Assuming you get all that right there's that moment when you turn the wheel in a 911 when, depending on how committed you've been, you'll get that chill of fear up your spine. Nothing's happened. Oh crap. I want to turn but the car doesn't. It's not going to happen. Oh no. That thing on the key ring? Is it a suicide capsule to bite on having made The Phonecall? Oh god.
Oh. It turned in. Phew.
Still with us?
And then the rush of endorphins as you feed the power back in, the rear hunkers down and as the rev counter passes '4' the cams shift again and that piercing howl once again echoes behind you.
This all happens in the merest of split seconds but I'm sure anyone who's driven a 911 at pace will have gone through it. And that little tap on the shoulder, that little nagging 'what if...' is healthy.
And I'm just afraid that, without that little whiff of fear, newer 911s and their equivalents elsewhere in the fast car world just raise the speed at which you'll eventually have that accident. Which you won't have seen coming because you'll have never felt the onset before.
There are some cars, not all necessarily built by Mazda in the early 90s, in which the enjoyment of that zone five or 10 per cent either side of the 'limit' (whatever you consider that to be) is the place where the real joy of driving lurks.
Chasing numbers
And that's the problem with this relentless chase to record more and more impressive numbers. Sure, that limit might be significantly higher than the previous model. But if the zone in which you can play in it has narrowed to just one per cent either side and at a point in the performance spectrum few would dare to tread it's ability wasted. What value a 10 per cent performance gain if you'd never actually use it? But what's the alternative - a new GT3 that's slower and has lower limits? That'd be commercial suicide.
I was struck by this dilemma chatting with a Porsche engineer who'd worked on both the Carrera GT and then the 918 Spyder. He was clearly a very clever chap and as passionate and skilled at his job as you could wish for. Which is why he was proudly toasting the 918's sub-seven minute lap of the 'ring with the team who'd made it happen.
So what did this senior engineering manager, this man who'd devoted years of his life and all his considerable intellect into making cars faster than their owners will ever appreciate choose to have in his own garage? Motorbikes, the requirement being that "they must have been built before I was born." Smart chap; smart enough to realise that trying to recreate that buzz in a car as capable and potent as a 918 Spyder is beyond the scope of all but the most skilled or reckless.
I can't take credit it for it myself but the mantra 'it's not how fast you go, it's how you go fast' is one more in the business could do with pinning to the wall above their desks, be they builders of hot hatches or supercars. Just how fast is that? Enough to make you feel alive without actually putting that happy state in peril would be a good marker. But maybe I'm wrong and just being a wuss...
M3s are wonderful cars, but not that easy to enjoy on the road in the real world imo, the limits are quite high. E36s were better in that regard I think...
By comparison, the aforementioned 20 year old Nissan can be slid around happily within the speed limit and makes "quick" driving far more interesting!
I think that had Lotus recognised this they could have taken all their Elise knowledge and combined it with some advanced manufacturing nous and produced a lightweight 2 seater for less than £17k. They could have beaten Mazda to the punch with the new MX5 and would have cleaned up I believe. Especially with doors big enough to get in and out of and a folding roof!
I'm not talking a next gen Elise, something beneath that in the model range.
I love Lotus cars, but I fear for their future now they're rubbing shoulders with the Germans and Italians at that level.
I'm sure some will disagree, but thats a healthy debate!
I mentioned in another post that I'm driving a Clio 197 at the moment. It is an excellent car but it feels detached compared to my previous 106 GTI. The steering feel is amazing, but the feedback is lacking. It feels like I'm driving a people carrier in comparison, its all a bit tame.
Because the Clio is so able, it feels numb near the limit and I find myself under steering where I wouldn't expect to, because of the lack of feedback its very difficult to tell where the limit is. I put this down to the comparatively big wheels and stiff suspension. Makes the Clio much faster on a track but takes away from the driving experience IMO.
Going to look at 106s in the classifieds...
hated and loved it all at once.
I love my Scooby now but a trip to the ring concinced me I would have more fun in a 205 GTI than a 300+ bhp modern car anyday of the week. Speed should cause you to feel something its apathy that has folk falling asleep at 85mph on the motorway.
Closest I came to the fiesta feeling again was doing my CBT at 30 on a 125 honda CG just a helemet and gloves for protection 30mph has never felt so sacry
Before you look down your noses at the 'hairdressers Toyota', go and drive one of the 1994 - 1999 Turbo models (in good running order), I can guarantee you will raise your eyebrows and agree that it is scary fast to drive and a much underrated performance car. You will get a far bigger buzz out of the MR2 than an Impreza for example, despite the Impreza being the more complete performance package.
Few modern cars - as the article quite rightly says - offer this raw feeling so I wholeheartedly agree with your words. It's all about the fear.....
For those of us who are not then I agree with the article 100%
I've driven a few high powered / supercharged Elises and Exiges but the car I enjoyed most was the basic Elise S with the 140 hp Toyota engine. As a British B road blaster I thought it was just about perfect.
Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff