DAVID VIVIAN
How a hybrid hypercar suddenly made everything crystal clear for Vivian
NO HEAD SCRATCHING. NO CHIN RUBBING. THE answer to the question I’d never been able to give without layers of equivocation – ‘what’s the best car you’ve ever driven?’ – arrived fully formed, Martini-liveried and in lightest Weissach Pack guise on 22 July, 2014. Reversing the Porsche 918 Spyder down the slender ramps of the transporter lorry it came in using electric power alone was a nervy horror, every second of the rest of the day a massive, life-enhancing reset, the limits of which, for me at least, haven’t been breached to this day. Experientially, the all-drive Porsche seemed to be composed entirely of superpowers that could be summoned in the snap of a synapse, perhaps none more awesome than the ability to roll silently through a village, much to the bemusement of onlookers, and then, with a clear road ahead, terminate the tranquillity with extreme prejudice and 944lb ft of torque. As my son would have said at the time… sick.
Today, the Audi R8 V10 and Porsche 911 are merely calibration marks in the VW Group’s meticulously balanced grand scheme. There is no real rivalry. Back in 2007, the ties weren’t so binding and the original V8-engined R8 had one clear target in its crosshairs. The idea that it could score a direct hit, given Audi’s previous and somewhat two-dimensional reliance on grunt and grip, was thought near impossible. That it did, and with so much style, charisma and dynamic flair, was perhaps the decade’s biggest automotive surprise and ensured almost instant hero status. The current V10-engined car is formidable, but I love the original R8 V8 more.
Schooled in the ways of the compact, light and nimble Mk1 Golf GTI, Peugeot’s seminal hot hatch, the 205 GTI, was more fun and had a few lessons of its own to dispense on the subject of front-wheel-drive lift-off oversteer. It remains the object lesson in the art of mining heaps of fun from modest on-paper numbers. The later 1.9-litre version, while punchier and more aggressive, lacked the supple fluency of the original. A key junior performance gateway on the road to greater things.
I had a Ford Sierra Cosworth for three glorious weeks. A brand-new Moonstone blue long-termer when I worked at Motor magazine. It was meant to be a 12-month love-affair but a colleague wrote off the Cossie a day before what was scheduled to be my first weekend with its 204bhp 2-litre turbo four fully run-in. I should have been so lucky. No 0-60mph in six seconds. No more using the jumbo rear wing as a coffee bar. No BMW trolling. For the sake of my driving licence, its early demise was probably a blessing in disguise. But I still wonder how life with
‘SUPERPOWERS THAT COULD BE SUMMONED IN THE SNAP OF A SYNAPSE’
the fastest production Ford since the GT40 might have been.
Sure, Lamborghini has come up with more extreme shapes since the Countach but they’ve all been limited run £1m+ specials. The Countach was Lamborghini’s mainstream flagship, the Miura’s replacement, and as it couldn’t be more beautiful (no car could), it had to be more exotic, more outrageous, more unbelievable. The stories that it wasn’t much cop to drive were mostly drivel. My time with various LP 500 Quattrovalvoles never felt less than epic. A little short of finesse, yes. Fairly awful driving position, check. And you could hardly see out of the thing. But the intensity of that V12, the utterly planted stance, the noise, the sheer engagement. Big boy supercars? The Countach wrote the book.
For work reasons, I used to visit the offices of auto motor und sport in Stuttgart around twice a month. On one occasion, the man in charge of the test car keys threw me the weighty fob of a Ferrari 550 Maranello. I thought he’d made a mistake. But no. I drove it all the way to Lake Constance, did some Christmas shopping, and returned in the early evening. I can honestly say, it was the most pleasant day I’d ever spent with a car. The style, charisma, effortless V12 power and sense of occasion were pure, optimum Ferrari and hugely seductive. I wanted one from the moment I handed back the keys.
Years before, as a thrill-seeking 21-year-old, I wondered what it would be like to give a really powerful motorbike the lot. I pretended that the Gilera 50cc trials moped I rode from On Two Wheels magazine’s Covent Garden HQ to my home in East Sussex one bank holiday weekend was the warm-up, but the finale was never consummated. Colleagues wondered why on earth I held back and suggested, bafflingly, that I should grow a pear.
Many decades later – still kind of curious but no less Hayabusa averse – a 300bhp, Honda-powered Ariel Atom 3 delivered a breathtaking, hair-tugging, cheek-folding, eyeballsluicing experience on the evo Triangle in Wales that teetered so precariously on the edge of sensory overload and runaway exhilaration, it finally gave expression to what I’d imagined for half a lifetime but with four wheels firmly on the floor. Apart from when they were airborne.
Back to supercars. More than the F1, more than the P1, more than the 720S, the 600LT is the Mclaren I like the most. I think it’s because it stands down the spookily supple refinement found in most current Mclarens and pursues a sharper, less filtered dynamic discipline that reminds me of the clenched fist belligerence and sense of intent I first encountered in Lamborghini’s ferociously ‘on it’ Lamborghini Gallardo Squadra Corse. A harder, more single-minded Mclaren and the better for it.
The final two slots are filled by a single notion that less is more. Light, focused and beautifully finessed, both the S1 Lotus Elise and the Renault R26.R simply did more with less, reaffirming the axiom that a small team of gifted chassis engineers counts for more than a stable full of horses.