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A quick scan through the cars I’ve driven and driven hard over the years puts a few of the top experiences at the forefront of my mind: Lotus Elise S2, Honda Civic Si Mugen, Fiat 500 Abarth, for example. All at around or under 200hp. And yet, many years later, a decade or more in some cases, I can still vividly recall almost every moment I had behind the wheel of those cars. The addictive sound of Elise’s tiny little engine as you hit the VVTL threshold, the scalpel-like precision at which I sliced apart those New Jersey backroads, the feedback in every major control, from the steering to the pedals to the gearshift. The shock at which I could manipulate the Civic, pushing harder and harder in corners that the standard Si could only dream of taking on. The crisp feeling of the shifter in my hand as I slotted it from gear to gear, the buzzing feel I had when I finally parked the car and handed it back over. Or the dozen or so laps I had on a small private track in the Abarth, flinging the tiny little box from corner to corner and mashing the throttle in the straight bits between while that cacophonous little engine filled my world with the sound of fury. There are others that have been fantastic experiences as well, including my Z4, Boxster S, Mazda RX-8, for example; they were over 200, but less than 300.
I’ve driven a Ferrari 430 on a track day experience—the most fun I had driving that day was to and from the track in my Z4. Don’t get me wrong, the Ferrari was a thrill, but the limits are so high that even on the track, albeit a small one with about a mile loop, it was difficult to get close enough to them to feel like the car was doing anything other than being a big computer.
I’ve bounced off the speed limiter in an S600. Surreal, sure, but fun? Not at all. It felt like piloting the USS Enterprise; the only difference between pootling around town and doing 155 on the highway was the blurriness of the scenery. It was fast, but nearly wholly devoid of any sensation.
Now, again, that’s not to say slow is always fun and fast is always boring. There have been numerous properly quick cars I’ve enjoyed the hell out of too, including C5, C6, and C7 Corvettes, a couple generations of Mustangs, BMW M3s, hell, even the LS1 and LS2 GTOs (and in this case, the more powerful LS2 model was head and shoulders more fun to drive than the relatively overburdened LS1 model). And of course, it just takes looking out your window to see a world full of slow, mundane, boring little boxes. But like I said before, power is pretty low on my list of cares and when taking a holistic view of the driving experience, it’s just not that important. Modern cars are the fastest and most powerful that cars have ever been. The Ferraris and Lamborghinis I lusted after as a kid would be schooled by a Honda Accord and dusted by a V6 Camry. And yet, cars have never been more boring; to look at, to drive, you name it.
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Originally Posted by geoffbot
