Ringside Seat: does the 'ring ruin road cars?
It's an ongoing debate, one Dale stokes further with a visit to Jaguar's Nurburgring test centre
Sometimes I agree. Take, for example, the superb in many ways Vauxhall Corsa VXR Nurburgring. It's a beast of a hot hatch and will bloody the nose of many cars twice its size on any racetrack you choose. This car was designed to be lots of fun to drive fast, and also to specifically bring home a Nurburgring lap time.
But if you bought this car expecting it to be good in traffic, or commuting over the speed bumps of south London, you'd be gutted. And I would have to agree with May. The suspension is tuned to deliver a constant report of every bump and ripple right to your brain via your arse and hands. The pointy steering and Drexler LSD allow a quick driver to steer from the rear and then plant the pedal down on every corner exit. None of these things make the car 'better' for the average use that James May thinks it will see.
Is that the Nurburgring's fault? Or Vauxhall's? Or the consumer's for buying into it? Does anybody really buy the hottest ever Corsa then complain that it's stiff and too responsive?
No, no and no. These headline-grabbing laptime cars such as the Corsa VXR or even Nissan GT-R only prove that a fast car around the Nurburgring is a little stiffer than the average driver might like. They're not ruined, they're doing what they're supposed to.
So next I looked at a brand of car not really known for any laptimes right now, but is still extensively tested around the Nurburgring Nordscheife - Jaguar. It has been bringing its cars to the 'ring since the 70s, and in 2003 it cemented its position here with its Nurburgring Test Centre. Every single Jaguar model gets a Nurburgring workout.
"A test car is driven 390 laps around the Nordschleife and that's over 5,000 miles" confirms Jaguar's European Engineering Team Leader Phil Talboys. "Durability cars are driven enthusiastically lap after lap, looking for problems. But it's not just reliability that's improved. Input is taken from the ride and the handling too, and put together with data from roads and tracks around the world."
The only laptime Phil mentions is a 'target' for the durability test drivers to hit. But even then, he's coy. "Let's just call it a laptime plus X," he says, "so that we know the car is being consistenly hard enough."
Models like the XF are known for their combination of sporty handling with ride quality that turns even the harshest surface into a silent deep-pile carpet of effortlessness. (Unless it's cold - Ed) Even the velvet-padded sledgehammer that is the XFR doesn't come with a laptime on the window sticker.
So back to the question; does the Nürburgring ruin cars? No, not in my opinion, at least. The marketing types can sell it to the wrong people, the engineers can focus on laptimes instead of ride quality and you or I can simply buy the wrong car for our needs. But the Nordschleife remains a great place to consistently push a car to the limits.
Video: Phil Talboys talks Nurburgring testing
The reason we like hot hatches, and for that matter sports saloons, is becuase they're a good do everything compromise. Sure do 150, 160, 170+ mph, but you also want to be able to drive to work and back in the same car without getting your spine caved in since there's only one parking space outside the flat you live in.
Make the golf GTI faster, make the XFR more sporty - but don't do it at the expense of ride quality, becuase a car like those needs to do _everything_ well. If all you care about is cornering speed, buy a dedicated track car. That might even be some form of hot hatch, but the compromise version needs to exist along side it in the (electronic?) brochure as well.
So basically wheres the middle ground here? genuine question not pointless criticism of this piece
Someone will buy an M3 or a sporty Jag because they look great and the media has said they are great - but their intended use has nothing to do with why they were designed the way they were and what the media said they do best.
e.g. M3s or 'R' Jags which spend 95%+ of their lives on the motorway or in city centre traffic when the owner would have been MUCH better off in a lesser model which wasn't badly setup for those uses.
That leads into the whole issue of 'people buy R Jags and M BMWs not because they perform, just because they're the top of the range'. We've all seen these people - they chose 'the best' and then drive it almost totally ignorant of what they've actually bought (perhaps even complaining that it rides hard or the seat is hard or whatever).
If we chose cars with more logic - they'd be designed and marketted with more logic...
The road outside our office has been a consant stream of utilities works for the last 5 years and it resembles a patchwork quilt more than a road these days.
The road outside our office has been a consant stream of utilities works for the last 5 years and it resembles a patchwork quilt more than a road these days.
The road outside our office has been a consant stream of utilities works for the last 5 years and it resembles a patchwork quilt more than a road these days.
However, I think I know the real reason why cars ride horribly these days. Everyone is interested in speccing the biggest, blingiest alloys that are offered on their car, with the lowest profile veneer of rubber covering them. Why? I'd far far rather ride in comfort on our rally-stage resembling roads than have my spine shattered just to show off parts I cant see when driving to bystanders who probably wont care. Both our Audi A4 and Fiat 500 have the smallest wheels offered and they ride infinitely better than friend's cars with monster wheel syndrome. Sure, they might not corner as hard before the tyres peel off, but when was the last time anyone explored anything approaching those limits in their daily drive cars anyway?
The Corsa VXR and Jaguars aren't really comparable, the Corsa was solely designed to put in a fast time at the 'ring, whereas the Jag's motives for using the ring are purely for stress testing as well as ensuring they don't make land-yachts.
It's not the testing at the 'ring that ruins the car, it's the level to which the car is focused towards the track that determines it's suitability on the roads.
French cars used to have a really good reputation for ride comfort (especially in the 70's / 80's) but part of the secret was that they used bigger wheels (with normal profile tyres) than their competitors used. Drive an old type Mini with 10" wheels and then try one with 12" wheels (both with standard profile tyres) and you will see what I mean!
So for best ride you want a larger rolling radius with relatively high profile tyres.
Meanwhile, there's no point in criticizing self-proclaimed 'ring specials. They are what they're advertised to be and there is nothing wrong with that!
Any car that can survive an enthusiastic lap on the ring though is going to be soft enough to cope with bumps without being the motoring equivalent of a jelly trifle. That isn't to say that a car can be both soft and race 'ard in the same package - it just costs a lot more money. Most of those cars that mop-head complains about are run-of-the-mill road cars that have been stiffened up for track use and will, as a result, always be on the hard side as they don't have the expensive suspension design.
I know May had as much of a gripe about more expensive cars but those were deliberate attempts to put race settings on road cars which means, as always, he is missing the point (possibly as much as the engineers are sometimes). It takes a certain masochistic kind of individual to buy one of those (I seem to remember someone taking such a car to the Italian Riviera though - oh the irony!) and only those people would put up with it.
So given it is the enthusiasts/masochists choice why is anyone even complaining about such things in the first place?
There was a programme recently following the Dragons from Dragons Den about their day-to-day buisness, and being a car geek I rewound/paused the TV at the bit where Deborah Meadons Audi Avant came into view. It was an RS6, and I'm pretty sure she never, ever uses the performance of that car (in fact, she 'styles' herself as being a bit of an eco-warrior and so it is a bit of a hypocritical choice of car).
Presumably she just wanted 'the best one'.
Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff