Survival of the fastest
There used to be an expression “racing improves the breed” I think this can now be changed to “draconian legislation and the green movement will turn the breed into a rabid, fire-breathing monster”.
My mind was recently drawn back to an article that appeared in Fast Lane in about 1986 the main thrust of which was basically “what constitutes a fast car?” and it really got me thinking. In 1986 it appeared as though time had stood still since 1961. Why do I say that? Well, it turns out, according to our permed and leather-jacketed 80’s auto-journo, that a fast car could knock on the door of 150 and dip under 7 seconds to 60. Guess what, that’s exactly what the E-Type could do when it had been launched 25 years before hand. So, where’s the progress? Move forward 37 years from that long forgotten and now dog-eared copy of Fast Lane that now resides in my mum’s loft (sorry Mum) and the situation is radically different.
Back in 1986 there were probably no more than a dozen 4 seaters that could hit those two bench mark figures. Aston V8 Vantage, Audi 200 (downhill), Daimler Double Six, Ferrari Mondial (ish) and 400i, BMW M635CSi, Porsches 944 Turbo, 911, and 928, Jag XJ-S, Merc 560 SEC, Maserati Khamsin, and I’m starting to struggle to be honest. Have a go for yourself, it’s harder than you think.
Scroll forward to 2023 and not wishing to be trite but it’s almost impossible to name any manufacturer that doesn’t have something in its range that will nail those sort of numbers all day long. Golf GTi? Basically every man and their dog has just copied that formula – sub 1400kgs, 220hp +, DSG + 5 door hatch back 150 mph and 6 point something to 60 – job done…
And that’s before we talk about the electric stuff – forget those big top speeds, that’s not the EVs forte, but looking instead at real world pace up to about 80 mph and just about any 70 KWH EV will give you a sub 7.0 second 0-60 time and you don’t have to climb too far up the EV ladder to be see performance stats that only super car royalty could have lived with just 10 years ago. And frankly I don’t think there’s any ICE car that would even see which way a Tesla Model S “Plaid” has gone with its sub 2.0 0-60 mph time. That’s beyond even the most super of superbikes.
Currently the car industry is having to adapt and innovate at a rate that has not been seen before in the hundred-year history of the car and the pace of that change only seems to be getting faster and faster. This brings me onto my final thought. Because of R&D and manufacturing lead times what we are seeing today is a product of the thinking that was done 4-5 years ago, so just wait to see what happens when the ideas that are coming out of the manufacturers’ skunk works today hit the street sometime soon.
Vive la revolution!
