There is much to be said about driving a slow car fast. Or even a slow-by-today’s standards car. I have more fun in the Orange Barchetta – my 1976 Trans-Am – than I have in the new performance cars I get to test drive, many of which have twice or even three times the performance capability.
Because their capability is cosseted.
The tires only slip so much before the traction nanny cuts throttle or applies brakes, keeping you from getting too sideways.
Your line is corrected by stability control.
Anyone can run a perfect quarter mile because of something called “launch control” – an electronic killjoy which takes the art of the thing entirely out of the thing. The computer manages everything. Holds the engine at just the right RPM; shifts at precisely the right moment. All you do is push a button and hold the gas pedal to the floor.
I remember trying out the high-speed elevators in the old WTC towers in New York City. They’d vault you up 50 stories in about the time it took to read this sentence. Extremely fast and not nearly as fun as riding a home-built zip line from a tree down to the pond.
You are along for the ride as much as your passengers – and it gets boring because it’s all so tediously predictable; the same thing every time. Lots of speed – no surprises. This takes any feeling of accomplishment out of the thing, since anyone can push a button and stand on the gas.
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Would anyone remember the Red Baron if anyone could have been the Red Baron?
My Trans-Am (which is lightly modified) has about half the horsepower of something like a new Corvette but it feels – and sounds – as though it has twice as much. The humongous carbureted V8 – 7.5 liters! – doesn’t have a smooth idle. It lopes threateningly. The car shakes. When it’s cold out you can see the V8’s heart beating through the twin-splitter dual exhaust in syncopated, slow-motion gattling gun puffs of vapor. Left, then right – in tune with the flat tappet camshaft’s highly irregular lobe profile.
New performance cars idle smoothly – like a Camry – even the ones with 800 horsepower engines, like the Dodge Hellcat.
They aren’t nearly as scary, despite being much faster.
Anyone can drive them fast without loss o control – which is almost like giving every kid a a ribbon no matter who won the game.
My car wards off the fearful. It is not for everyone. As performance cars used to be.
