Quicker, safer, duller — where sports cars have gone wrong: Andrew Frankel
“We are meant to be the puppeteers, cars our puppets, but it no longer feels the case”
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
Elsewhere in this issue you will find my review of the Ferrari Roma, so I won’t let it delay us here except to say that when I drove it, it did strike me that if a car of such performance were produced not that long ago, it would have been all but undrivable for quite a lot of the time.
Indeed the single biggest reason the entire envelope of automotive performance has been able to expand at what at times has seemed an exponential rate over the last couple of decades is not car manufacturers finding more power, but developing with companies like Bosch the electronic intervention systems to go with it.
I happened to drive over to the Roma’s Goodwood launch in a McLaren GT, but because Ferrari makes you sign a piece of paper promising not to do any kind of comparison testing as a condition of being allowed to get in its cars at launch, I can’t tell you much about their relative strengths and weaknesses. What I can say – I think – is that on wet roads or cold roads, or both, both cars and plenty of others are so traction-limited as to make their power outputs a matter of only academic interest.
