Is there a need for performance cars on the road?

LiE said:
I understand the appeal of a performance car, but I feel they are a bit lost on today's roads. I think there's definitely a sweet spot for performance that can be utilized on the road, which makes driving more fun and safe.

Where do you think the sweet spot is? and do you think most performance cars are restricted so much on the road there advantages become redundant.
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You don't understand. ;)
 
In a word yes - but at the same time it's about your priorities and what is important to you.

A comfortable car with all the mod cons appeals more than an out and out race box - if I could have both, I'd be happy. If I had to have one I'd choose the comfy car.

I still like performance cars, and would always choose a car that has in my opinion enough power to have some fun with, but also has enough day to day comfort that doesn't make me resent it.

For example and M3/M5 or an S/RS series Audi are very quick, yet perfectly practical cars. Is there a need for such power? It depends how you look at it - I like to know that I have power available should I need it - it doesn't mean you need to use the power ALL the time. However, I do like to drive in a more spirited manner - fuel economy isn't a massive issue for me and hasn't been to this day the deal breaker when it comes to car choice.

When riding a motorbike, it's faster than 99% of cars, but that doesn't mean I have or do wring the neck out of it all the time - though the power is exhilarating and driving should be about having fun too (in a safe way of coursE).
 
Well I',m seeing it from a banned situation currently until Monday, however for me, yeah and no, there's no right or wrong answer. Any power that can push you to over 70mph in theory is useless... as the law says that's the limit, however it's how you get there. I enjoy driving and biking, I don't push anywhere near the limits, but I do enjoy the thrill you get from a "spirited ride" whether that's legal or not...

There's certainly ZERO point in a 700bhp car on UK roads as you'dnever get to use it apart from the M6 Toll Road ;-0... what is a good limit? god knows... 200bhp... 150bhp...? whatever flicks your switch, but we do live in a world that basically the majority of power is wasted on road cars tbh unless you drive like a tool everyday.
 
Most of the time I run around in mine out of Vtec, the road surface around here certainly doesn't inspire confidence to drive hard.
 
How many times have you not had a gap big enough or a road long enough to overtake?

Since I got my Legnum, those number of those instances have decreased by a large amount - I need a smaller gap and less road to overtake when I do want to make progress.
 
Interesting topic, something I've been thinking of recently as I'm considering replacing my current car.

To echo some of the previous comments, performance in normal day to day driving obviously allows you to overtake easier... but do do people need a >200bhp, low 20's mpg car for that?

This is why I'm considering a diesel with plenty of torque. I've been in a 2.0L Audi A3 TDI which pretty much had enough power that I could ever need for this purpose.
 
To their credit the 2.0 TDI's have a reasonable overtaking ability (think 45-70mph in 4th gear) for what they are (slow, dull, oil burners)

That being said I think the absolute sweet spot and limit is around 300bhp but certainly not FWD.
That's why my next car will be a remapped e90 330d. The responsiveness and in-gear acceleration and overtaking ability is phenomenal, dynamically speaking it's very good for a "common" car (ok it's no m3 but it won't be a nose heavy dull barge) while still doing able do do 40-45 mpg on the motorway without much effort and decent refinement.
 
Like many things in life, power in a car is a form of insurance: most of the time you don't need it, but when you do, you really do. And it's also a great comfort to know that you have it. I find that the more power my car has/had, the more relaxed driving is/was. I now don't particularly care if I'm stuck behind a numpty in a sensible Japanese hatchback, because I know it probably won't be long before I can get past. I like the fact that the car accelerates exactly as much as I want it to, even if I'm going up a steep hill. I'm not sure I could live with a car with less than 300bhp these days. And yet - most of the time I drive like your granddad. To be fair though, I'm plenty old enough to be one.
 
Need is a strong word. I'd say there's definitely no NEED for them on the road, but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't be available for those who enjoy them. The debate about irresponsible drivers is, for me, somewhat irrelevant, since most cars are capable of achieving lethal speeds relatively quickly, the rest is just for dramatic effect.
 
Vita said:
I bet you wouldn't be saying that had you not had those 2 mishaps.

I think there is a limit to how much power should be on the roads. I find the 215bhp in my ATR more than enough. People with lol400bhp is overkill. Where can they actually use that power? Unless it's on a track, or very very long road.

Breaking the limit is easy on performance cars.

Crica 200bhp is enough imo.
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Overtaking 3 lorries in a row with a train of cars behind it ;)

My commute is 13 miles and it takes me on average 18 minutes. I do work nights though so the roads are clearer. Ive gone from 200ish BHP to just over 300 and from FWD to 4WD and can do a lot more than before. Especially when the snow hit. Being able to overtake cars with ease in 5th rather than blipping it down to 3rd and mashing the throttle make for a more relaxing drive.

Obviously petrol is the main concern. £50 a week fill up if I use it all week but then again I also have a EG Vtec-E Honda Civic for the MPG's.
 
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You can have too much power. I thought 300bhp in the 335i was about right - enough power to never leave you wanting but not so much to render it largely pointless.

By contrast the F10 M5 was ridiculous. Ridiculously fun on the Autobahn where I could touch the throttle without being a Daily Mail Front Page worthy criminal, but in the UK I can imagine it being much like having a pet tiger and having to keep it in a cage constantly. You can pretty much never use full throttle legally :(
 
Hi there

This is a bit yes and no.

Forgetting about speed limits, it is possible to drive a very fast car close and to its limits on public roads, EVO Triangle for example and other great country roads, just be prepared for the fact if you get caught, your gonna be in big big trouble. So yes a super quick car like a GTR, EVO, 911, M3 you can drive them close to their limits or upto them on the road, a lot is also down to the drivers ability and common sense.

Then the other fact is sometimes a slower car can be just as rewarding, examples are GT86, entry level Porsche Boxsters/Caymans etc. A perfect example was when Porsche gave me a DFI 2.9 Boxster, I absolutely loved ringing its neck on the road, you could drive it extremely hard and to the limits on the road and yes you'd get slapped hands, but not a jail sentence.

So slow sporty cars can be fun because you have to push them a lot harder to get upto speed and as such could be considered more engaging. Wheras in something more powerful, more capable you end up going bonkers fast, example its very easy to see 160+ in a GTR on public roads.

So wheras fun is quick with little effort, it can be just as much fun if not more when you have to really drive and try so hard to have good pace in a slower but well sorted handling car.

Of course when it comes to traffic light GP, power power power, just so you can dust the other guy. Or as I used to do in the EVO, pull of slow let them get 2-3 car lengths ahead and then absolutely go past them like a missile. It is so cruel they think they are winning, then you just dissapear, harsh and childish I know, but oh so gooooood! ;)
 
Gf drove home from work today and at a roundabout near home she exits onto a dual carriageway, past two cars and straight to the top of 2nd and then 3rd.

She says how she loves it when she gets a chance to do that, I looked in the mirror and the traffic behind were beyond 100m away

Its just a plain simple joy to have some oomph under your foot but in the same way drink driving has become totally socially unacceptable speeding is going down the same line.
 
NathWraith said:
Accident has nothing to do with it.

I regularly thought when I had my Supra, "this is costing £100 plus a week just to get to work and I just sit in traffic why?" It is all fun and games when you enjoy your car but I get bored very easily and when you are shelling £100 a week out into something you are bored of, it gets tedious.

My Ibiza Cupra and 350Z I would place firmly in the same category.

The CRZ is fine for me, fast enough, handles well and doesn't cost me loads to fuel. Yeah you won't win any traffic light GPs but I think for the most part I've got that out of me lol.

Saying that I'm still taking the bad boy on track this sunday :D
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But buying an Eco hatch just changes your fuel cost into depreciation.

Best off just enjoying your commute where possible :D
 
Nowt like hearing the turbo sucking up a granny or 2.

Keep to your own limit and make sure you ain't putting anyone else in danger. Then you can have your fun with high powered cars on the UK roads.

Get caught, tough luck and put your hands up and take it like a trooper.
 
Speeding is also a huge revenue generator, They don't even have to catch you to end up taking it like a trooper. The system is so geared to penalise and demonize speeding its ridiculous
 
I can't get to the original review, due to Murdoch's paywall, but here's the text of Clarkson's (lengthy, waffly) review of the MX-5, which seems somewhat relevant...

Clarkson said:
There’s a farm shop near where I live. Actually, it isn’t really a farm shop at all because the floor is made from oak rather than fertilizer bags and all of the staff look like supermodels instead of burst walnut trees.

Inside you can buy jumpers made from exotic goats, bread that would make a Frenchman faint and apples so shiny, they could double up as disco balls. It’s called Daylesford and it’s the subject of much mockery, principally because everything is so bleeding expensive. As a friend of mine said recently: “I went to Daylesford to get some cheese this morning. But I only had £162 on me.”

The thing is, though, it is excellent value for money. When I go there on a Saturday morning, I always meet someone who invites me round for dinner that night. This means I don’t have to buy supper, or cook it.
What’s more, without Daylesford I’d have to go to London to buy my groceries, which would cost £50 in petrol, £8 for the congestion charge and £100 to get my car back from the pound. So, all of a sudden, 25 quid seems the bargain of the century. Especially when you consider that Daylesford has started to affect house prices. People will pay considerably more to live near it, which means that every time someone buys a loaf of bread, I’m earning about £500,000.

And on top of all this, without Daylesford I’d have to go to a local supermarket to buy my ham. Yes, the ham there is only 4p, but it’s Barbie pink and about as nutritional as the plastic bag it’s sold in.
We see the same sort of thing with cars. I recently drove something called a Perodua Myvi, which sells for £7,600. That’s cheap when you consider it has the same number of wheels and glove boxes as a Rolls-Royce Phantom. But it is extremely expensive when you work out how miserable and dreary it makes you feel. It’s a car built utterly without joy. Buying one of these would be like buying a nylon dog simply because it’s cheaper to keep.

There are lots of cheap cars on the market but only a very small number offer truly excellent value for money. The Fiat 500 is one, for sure, because just seeing it makes you happy. And the Skoda Roomster is another, provided you avoid the three-cylinder diesel version. Yes, you will save money when you buy it, but the savings will be offset by the cost of the funeral you’ll need shortly after you first try to build up enough speed to join a motorway.

The Jaguar X-type is perhaps the best example of cost having nothing to do with value. Yes, it was very cheap for a Jaguar. But since it was nothing more than a Mondeo in a rented suit, it was extremely poor value for money. That’s why it never sold well. And that’s why 300 poor souls at the Halewood plant are now facing the dole queue.

And then there’s the new Vauxhall Insignia VXR. On the face of it, this looks excellent value. The Insignia is a good-looking car and the hot version is even better. What’s more, it has a long list of standard kit, a 321bhp twin-turbo engine and four-wheel drive, and since prices start at a whisker over £30,000 it is way less than its rivals from Audi and BMW.

Yes, but the money you save in no way compensates for the fact that you must spend the next year or so telling your friends that you have a Vauxhall. Which is a bit like saying you have genital warts. People will raise their eyebrows and edge away.

Buying a Vauxhall to save money is like going on holiday to Northampton to save money. You will, for sure, but you will not be as happy as if you went to France.

And all of this brings me naturally to the Mazda MX-5, which I think represents better value for money than any other car on sale in Britain today. A 1.8-litre soft-top version, as opposed to the one that comes with a folding metal roof, is £16,345, and for that you get almost exactly the same amount of fun you would get from a Ferrari 430 Spider.

This is the thing with convertibles. When the roof is down, the buffeting and the racket mean that any speed above about 80 is unpleasant. So you really don’t need a million horsepower or a gearbox that can swap cogs in a billionth of a blink.

With the Mazda you get the engine at the front, rear-wheel drive and skinny tyres. This, then, is a car designed to thrill and excite and put a massive smile on your face at the sort of speed that won’t mess up your girlfriend’s hair.

My old mate Tiff Needell, from commercial television, is perfectly capable of power-sliding a space shuttle but argues to this day that the most fun he’s ever had is in a Morris Minor, because it can be provoked into some tail-out action at about 2mph. So it goes with the Mazda. In short, you don’t need to be an astronaut with titanium hair follicles to get the best out of it.

Put simply, an MX-5 feels more alive at 30mph than most other cars feel at 100.

So, every time Mazda changes something on its little sports car, I’m worried the end result will be a bit more serious, a bit more “driver-oriented”, a bit more anal. And that the original recipe will have been ruined.

I realise, of course, that an original can be improved, no matter how good it may have been. You have only to listen to the Hothouse Flowers’ version of I Can See Clearly Now to understand this. But, for every original that’s improved, there are a thousand that are ruined.
That’s why I approached the recently facelifted version of the MX-5 with a heavy heart and a sense of foreboding.

Let me give you an example. Mazda has fitted the engine with a forged crankshaft, floating pistons and new valve gear. It all sounds like the wet dream of a diehard, adenoidal car bore. But don’t worry. Despite all the work, the amount of power the engine produces remains exactly as it was before. And it’s the same story with the torque. The only real change is that you can now rev to 7500rpm before you need to change gear. And it all sounds a bit more sporty.

The company has changed the front suspension too, and that worried me as well. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the setup in the old car, so why fiddle? Plainly it was simply to keep the engineers out of Hiroshima’s love hotels, because it is just as sparkling and brilliant as it was before. Maybe it’s a bit more focused, a bit sharper. But only if you concentrate, and that’s the thing about the MX-5. You don’t concentrate: you’re way too busy having a nice time.

Inside, you now get Recaro seats and higher-quality switches, but I didn’t notice these either.

I said recently that the BMW Z4 is the best of the open sports cars, but after a couple of days with the Mazda I realised I was talking nonsense. The BMW is excellent but the MX-5 demonstrates that its extra speed, extra grip and extra size is all a bit wasteful. In the little Japanese car you get exactly what you need, and exactly the space you need, and nothing more.

I realise that the hairy-chested among you will be scoffing and tutting and heading straight for this column on the internet so you can speak your mind. You will say “girl’s car” and “gay” and all sorts of other things.

Well, that’s fine. You waste your money on a Mustang or a Ferrari. The fact is that if you want a sports car, the MX-5 is perfect. Nothing on the road will give you better value. Nothing will give you so much fun. The only reason I’m giving it five stars is because I can’t give it 14.
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