I fear that the best examples of automotive perfection are in the past. Only are good new driver’s cars increasingly few and far in between. Cars and the automotive culture is a big deal to me, not only because it can play a vital role in larger society, but because I think the time for truly great driver’s cars has passed. Even if I am a pea-brained millennial that has no concept of why anyone would consciously use Whatsapp other than sending pictures of their genitals to strangers. I will write about cars that allow their drivers the greatest amount of feedback and communication with the least amount of compromise to other aspects of the car. Everyone has to come into terms that the proverbial driving experience is changing at a rapid pace.
Cars are becoming safer to drive in, they are feature-rich and efficient and engines have never had more output, whether it is an econobox Hyundai Sonata churning out a torque curve that would literally twist the swiss-cheese frame of a Mk I Golf GTI, or a mad Dodge Charger Hellcat with its ticket-to-the-pearly-gates 707 horses from a supercharged V8. This power is fed through a series of computers that analyze what the body of the car is doing, how far the suspension is compressed or stretched, the gear the transmission is in among others.
However, as with anything in the known human kingdom, there’s no such a thing as a free lunch, no matter what. Over the past few decades, automobiles have become, on average, more than 200 kilograms heavier than they were in the late ‘80s. Car prices have also sky-rocketed over the years, fueled by the added cost of development and implementation of the systems that serves as layers in between the driver and an unfiltered driving experience.
A fully loaded 1983 Volkswagen Golf/Rabbit GTI cost around 830,000 Kenyan Shillings in the US brand new, which translates to over 1,930,000 Kenyan Shillings in today’s money. Today, a 2015 Golf GTI with all options on-board would cost around 3,143,400 Kenyan Shillings.
The BMW E30 3 Series is considered by many car enthusiasts to be one of the best driver’s cars ever made. Its light chassis, taut suspension, an engine that loves revving very high and good practicality made this car an analog masterpiece. The handling and the feeling of barebones on this car was, and still is, the yardstick to which other cars can aspire to be. This car was all about the driving experience and nothing else; an embodiment of the “Ultimate Driving Machine” slogan BMW has been slinging.
The E30 had emissions and safety restrictions of its own to deal with. Those restrictions don’t seem as persuasive as they are now, and it is my concern that cars, even boutique, will never employ that amount of simplicity ever again. I can utterly lament that we will never have anything approaching the rawness of a BMW E39 M5 again. I really love this Bavarian.
I miss the days when high-end sports car manufacturers used hydraulic power steering systems instead of electric ones for “weight savings”. Petrolheads, or are we gear heads, are a subset of a subset of a population; a forgettable niche in the grand scheme of things. Cars like the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VI Makinen, the 1993 Porsche 911 993(the most complete car on earth as Top Gear puts it in), the 1999 BMW 320d which was justifiable with head and heart, the 1996 Porsche Boxster which was perfect in the driving position, perfect engine, perfect brakes, a perfect gearbox and a perfect handling, it was inarguably perfect in everything of concern to a driver. Can a 2005 Bugatti Veyron fit in this category?
