Performance cars that are just too heavy?

[Frimley111R]

Modern cars seem very heavy and people often refer to them as being nimble and good handling and yet, with many being 1500-1700kg and often more aren't they just too heavy? Any spirited driving puts huge wear on tyres, brakes and suspension. Direction changes can't be great with all that weight to move either.

I drove a 4WD hot hatch recently and it seemed to use its weight to weigh itself down/grip the road but it felt every kg of its 1800kg

Has this ever put you off?

[Ice_blue_tvr]

I always felt the e92 m3 could have benefited from being 150-200kg lighter, or 100lb ft more in the pants department.

It was very sure footed and well balanced though.

[BGarside]

I'd go for a lighter car, given the choice. The Suzuki Swift Sport appeals to me and is around 1000kg I believe.

My current E36 BMW is close to 1400kg which is pretty heavy for an old, smallish saloon. Wouldn't really want anything heavier.

[Panamax]

The increased weight of cars has been more than compensated by increases in power and braking.

[Draxindustries1]

Panamax said:

The increased weight of cars has been more than compensated by increases in power and braking.

With correspondingly higher fuel consumption.

An ancient car with no safety features but my Mk2 GT Cortina weighs 850kg. Cars have grown massively
..

Edited by Draxindustries1 on Tuesday 27th September 19:03

[chickenbarns]

Draxindustries1 said:

Panamax said:

The increased weight of cars has been more than compensated by increases in power and braking.

With correspondingly higher fuel consumption.

I

newer cars return better mpg meaning less fuel consumption surely?

-CB

[CraigyMc]

Frimley111R said:

Modern cars seem very heavy and people often refer to them as being nimble and good handling and yet, with many being 1500-1700kg and often more aren't they just too heavy? Any spirited driving puts huge wear on tyres, brakes and suspension. Direction changes can't be great with all that weight to move either.

I drove a 4WD hot hatch recently and it seemed to use its weight to weigh itself down/grip the road but it felt every kg of its 1800kg

Has this ever put you off?

It put me of the Emira and that's not even very heavy.

I'll stick with the V6 exige tyvm.

[cerb4.5lee]

I've just got used to it and I try not to moan as much about it. The E92 M3 I had was 1650kg, and that felt really heavy under braking because the brakes were crap.

I've currently got a 370Z Roadster that weighs about 1600kg, but it has good brakes though. I also have a F82 M4 that also weighs about 1600kg, and that has good brakes too.

Weight wise I definitely preferred my old S14a 200SX and TVR Cerbera 4.5, because they both weighed about 1200kg. That is a nice sweet spot weight wise I reckon.

[P. ONeill]

Ice_blue_tvr said:

I always felt the e92 m3 could have benefited from being 150-200kg lighter, or 100lb ft more in the pants department.

It was very sure footed and well balanced though.

Definitely should have been a lot lighter, but I would never describe my old M3 as surefooted. One car I just didn’t gel with. Awful driving position.

[Leon R]

Which 4WD hot hatch is 1800KG?!

[samoht]

It's perfectly possible to enjoy driving a heavy car. At the same time, virtually any car can be improved by being lighter.

Lightness is a virtue, but it's one that has to be traded off against price, performance and to some extent practicality for most petrolheads. E.g. someone made a car that was very light, stiff, adequately practical and had a normally aspirated V12 engine, and now it's worth £20m or so. Which suggests that lots of people agree with you, but also explains why most people end up driving cars heavier than 1138 kgs.

At the same time, lightness doesn't excuse poor steering, ride, driving position, an engine with less poke than an asthmatic snail, etc - a fun car needs to be the whole package.

I compromised on maintenance costs to get an RX-7 rather than, say, a Supra or Skyline, because the Mazda is a quarter tonne lighter at 1275kg or so. And yeah, it was really nice to drive hard.

So it's a merit, but it's not the be-all and end-all of driving enjoyment.

[av185]

Draxindustries1 said:

Panamax said:

The increased weight of cars has been more than compensated by increases in power and braking.

With correspondingly higher fuel consumption.

And correspondingly higher pollution levels from bigger engine bigger brakes and bigger tyres too.

[toasty]

P. ONeill said:

Ice_blue_tvr said:

I always felt the e92 m3 could have benefited from being 150-200kg lighter, or 100lb ft more in the pants department.

It was very sure footed and well balanced though.

Definitely should have been a lot lighter, but I would never describe my old M3 as surefooted. One car I just didn’t gel with. Awful driving position.

I get that everyone’s different but my experience was the polar opposite. Except for the weight bit.

Though it’d probably feel like it was made of carbon fibre compared to the M5. Now that is a chunky monkey.

[cerb4.5lee]

toasty said:

P. ONeill said:

Ice_blue_tvr said:

I always felt the e92 m3 could have benefited from being 150-200kg lighter, or 100lb ft more in the pants department.

It was very sure footed and well balanced though.

Definitely should have been a lot lighter, but I would never describe my old M3 as surefooted. One car I just didn’t gel with. Awful driving position.

I get that everyone’s different but my experience was the polar opposite. Except for the weight bit.

Though it’d probably feel like it was made of carbon fibre compared to the M5. Now that is a chunky monkey.

I really liked the easily controlled chassis on the E92 M3(I felt very confident in it), but it would definitely benefit from either being lighter or have more torque as Ice_blue_tvr alludes to though.

[Haltamer]

Whilst you can't cheat phyiscs, you can stack the deck.

Take 2000kg of car and pair it with some adaptive dampers / roll bars / clever ESC programming and suddenly you've got a very nimble feeling car for the test drive.

Sure, the 300 section mega tyres and colossal brakes aren't cheap, but that's the price people will pay to have their cake and think they're eating it too.

[cerb4.5lee]

samoht said:

It's perfectly possible to enjoy driving a heavy car. At the same time, virtually any car can be improved by being lighter.

So it's a merit, but it's not the be-all and end-all of driving enjoyment.

I always think back to when I did 160 in both the Cerbera and the E92 M3 with this. At 160 the Cerbera felt like it would either take off at that speed or punt me off the road...because it felt so light at that speed. Whereas at the same speed in the M3 it was as solid as a rock and it felt like you were only doing about a 100 in comparison.

So weight can have its benefits in some situations I think.

[Daston]

cerb4.5lee said:

I always think back to when I did 160 in both the Cerbera and the E92 M3 with this. At 160 the Cerbera felt like it would either take off at that speed or punt me off the road...because it felt so light at that speed. Whereas at the same speed in the M3 it was as solid as a rock and it felt like you were only doing about a 100 in comparison.

So weight can have its benefits in some situations I think.

That is probably aero as well, my Tuscan used to feel horrible above 130 odd and very light in the nose. My RX7 which didn't weigh much more felt really planted, my 911 even more so.

[Garett]

I've never driven one but the VW Golf R32 is what sticks in my mind as being a performance car let down by its lardyness. Although on paper it's not slow, 1600kg is just too much for a hot hatch.

[samoht]

cerb4.5lee said:

I always think back to when I did 160 in both the Cerbera and the E92 M3 with this. At 160 the Cerbera felt like it would either take off at that speed or punt me off the road...because it felt so light at that speed. Whereas at the same speed in the M3 it was as solid as a rock and it felt like you were only doing about a 100 in comparison.

So weight can have its benefits in some situations I think.

I agree that it's probably easier to make a heavier car stable in a straightish line at high speed, yeah. My C55 (~1700kg) is very smooth and stable at 155.


At the same time, I think it's quite possible to engineer a light car to be stable at speed. It's a combo of suspension, aero, and weight distribution. I'd expect that a McLaren F1 would be fine at 160mph, or a 600LT, or a 911 GT3, or an A110.

In other words, while I don't want to be rude about TVR engineering, I suspect that they haven't spent a lot of time being carefully engineered for high-speed stability, and that's what you felt in yours.

[Carfield]

E60 M5, haven’t had much time in any of the more recent ones. Great when you were really on it, the rest of the time felt like a recalcitrant bulldozer