Reply to comment
What a car should be
admin — Mon, 2010-07-26 13:20
I'm a fairly heavy reader of Jalponik, a car blog. They have everything from 24 hours of Lemons (and Lemans) coverage, to a crazy guy in an E30 competing with professional rally cars, to Miata and E30-turned trucks.
The latest post I read from them was about the Ford GTX-1. It's the only prototype of a roadster Ford GT. It's a bit different from the original, looks awesome, is actually a little smaller, and puts out 700hp at the flywheel. Thing is, they're asking $525k for a fancy, quick, quirky experimental Ford. I'm sure it'd be a great car, but if I were a billionaire I think I'd spend maybe $50-100k on it, possibly just to resell it. But anyways, I wrote this comment and thought it might be worthy of posting here.
"I don't care how good of a car is, but I am enough of an idiot to spend half a million dollars on a Ford.
The reality is, good cars should be about having the most fun, being somewhat simple, reliable, economical, fairly quick, give awesome driver feedback, and should just excite you. I don't care if my car can't go 200mph (or even 130mph), but if it can make 40mph in the turns exciting that's all that counts for me.
I used to drive a 1986 Toyota Celica GT-S coupe, 5-speed. It was in awful, awful shape. The tires were dangerously bald in the rear, the clutch was going, and the engine was not smooth at all. The struts were completely bad, too, but somehow it was an extremely fun car, even in in a straight line. I was probably getting 7.6-8.2 second 0-60's in it, but the engine roared and taunted you. It wanted to be pushed and driven. My ex's dad had (well, was test driving for the weekend) a '94 Prelude VTEC that probably had 200hp, and used it quite well. It's a heavy car, but it can get to 0-60 in the 6.2-7 second range, which is much, much faster than mine when you actually watch the speedometer. My ex's dad was pulling it up to 100mph in no time (no joke). My car could only make it up to 80mph in the same stretch, even with being extremely familiar with the engine and shifting. The thing is, the only thing exciting on the Prelude was the speedometer. It didn't feel fast, it didn't sound particularly fast, and the corners really weren't very exciting. It would probably do circles around my old Celica, but no way in the world would I call it a sports car like my Celica."
Now, I'm sure that the Ford GTX-1 would be exciting, but honestly is it going to be any more fun than a BMW E30 M3? Probably not, and you can drive it at exciting speeds while getting half as many tickets for reckless driving. Save half a million dollars, buy the M3 for $17k and fix it up with $8k and you're set.
I can't relate to people who drive just to get to the grocery store and back, as I am... rather spirited given the chance. This is on a different tangent than the GTX-1, but I drive much in part because I like it. I love fighting with my shifter, heel-and-toeing, trying to be smooth, trying to be fast, and especially whipping the tail out a little bit in the corners.
What's the point of driving fast if it isn't exciting? When on earth will you need to go 200mph? Sure, I'd love a car that could pull that hard, but if it turns it into some robotic driving device instead of a glorified glove on steroids like a normal car, no way is it all that great. It just takes a little bit of skill and a desire for brief moments of epinephrine, followed by endorphine.
I'll be fighting with clutches, removing ABS, and disabling traction control for a long, long time :-).
Thanks for reading.
--Teran
The latest post I read from them was about the Ford GTX-1. It's the only prototype of a roadster Ford GT. It's a bit different from the original, looks awesome, is actually a little smaller, and puts out 700hp at the flywheel. Thing is, they're asking $525k for a fancy, quick, quirky experimental Ford. I'm sure it'd be a great car, but if I were a billionaire I think I'd spend maybe $50-100k on it, possibly just to resell it. But anyways, I wrote this comment and thought it might be worthy of posting here.
"I don't care how good of a car is, but I am enough of an idiot to spend half a million dollars on a Ford.
The reality is, good cars should be about having the most fun, being somewhat simple, reliable, economical, fairly quick, give awesome driver feedback, and should just excite you. I don't care if my car can't go 200mph (or even 130mph), but if it can make 40mph in the turns exciting that's all that counts for me.
I used to drive a 1986 Toyota Celica GT-S coupe, 5-speed. It was in awful, awful shape. The tires were dangerously bald in the rear, the clutch was going, and the engine was not smooth at all. The struts were completely bad, too, but somehow it was an extremely fun car, even in in a straight line. I was probably getting 7.6-8.2 second 0-60's in it, but the engine roared and taunted you. It wanted to be pushed and driven. My ex's dad had (well, was test driving for the weekend) a '94 Prelude VTEC that probably had 200hp, and used it quite well. It's a heavy car, but it can get to 0-60 in the 6.2-7 second range, which is much, much faster than mine when you actually watch the speedometer. My ex's dad was pulling it up to 100mph in no time (no joke). My car could only make it up to 80mph in the same stretch, even with being extremely familiar with the engine and shifting. The thing is, the only thing exciting on the Prelude was the speedometer. It didn't feel fast, it didn't sound particularly fast, and the corners really weren't very exciting. It would probably do circles around my old Celica, but no way in the world would I call it a sports car like my Celica."
Now, I'm sure that the Ford GTX-1 would be exciting, but honestly is it going to be any more fun than a BMW E30 M3? Probably not, and you can drive it at exciting speeds while getting half as many tickets for reckless driving. Save half a million dollars, buy the M3 for $17k and fix it up with $8k and you're set.
I can't relate to people who drive just to get to the grocery store and back, as I am... rather spirited given the chance. This is on a different tangent than the GTX-1, but I drive much in part because I like it. I love fighting with my shifter, heel-and-toeing, trying to be smooth, trying to be fast, and especially whipping the tail out a little bit in the corners.
What's the point of driving fast if it isn't exciting? When on earth will you need to go 200mph? Sure, I'd love a car that could pull that hard, but if it turns it into some robotic driving device instead of a glorified glove on steroids like a normal car, no way is it all that great. It just takes a little bit of skill and a desire for brief moments of epinephrine, followed by endorphine.
I'll be fighting with clutches, removing ABS, and disabling traction control for a long, long time :-).
Thanks for reading.
--Teran