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The tranquillity of motion
3 years ago
The German autobahn can be driving nirvana, says Henry
The only times my heart skipped a jolting beat came when I spotted a silver and green wagon parked at the side of the road and then, a few miles later, another cruising along in the inside lane. Both made me feel guilty immediately. Despite doing nothing illegal or unsafe, the mere fact I was bowling along at 140mph meant I felt like I’d bumped into a teacher in a pub during the school holidays. Continuing past the Polizei unabated was like trying to take the Craner Curves flat for the first time. You do not need to lift, you do not need to lift…
Not that this strop along the autobahn was about trying to go flat out. I wasn’t straining for a single heady hit of the double-ton before backing off. I’ve done that in the past, but that wasn’t the intention this time. I think I topped out at around 180mph on a stretch that happened to be unusually empty, but it was incidental. And once you remove that desire to reach a particular speed, once you cast off that potentially lethal obsession with clinging desperately to every single mph in order to achieve a number that the speedo is probably lying about in any case, then you find the true joy of the autobahn.
"The first time you settle into a three-figure flow you might feel a touch tense. But as you learn to look further ahead, and get to understand the capability of the brakes that you command, you tend to chill out a bit"
Mine is a lasting love affair with German motorways. That feeling of really making progress. Covering the furlongs. Shrinking a journey. And if you’re blessed with a mere smattering of traffic, if the outside lane stays as empty as a curry house at breakfast time so that you can just cruise at speed, driving becomes easier and smoother.
Yes there is a lot to think about and perhaps the first time you settle into a three-figure flow you might feel a touch tense. But as you learn to look further ahead and feel more comfortable with reading the traffic, and get to understand the capability of the brakes that you command, you tend to chill out a bit.
Of course if you’re in an overloaded 1-litre crossover, it’s going to be a little tougher to relax as you turn off the air-con and change down for every incline. Lucky chap that I am, I had no such worries with 4.4-litres divided between eight cylinders, augmented by a couple of turbos. The resulting 617bhp and 553lb ft makes pretty short work of even a couple of thousand kilos, which is what BMW’s F93 M8 Gran Coupé weighs.
"Once you remove the desire to reach a particular speed, once you cast off that potentially lethal obsession with clinging desperately to every single mph in order to achieve a number that the speedo is probably lying about in any case, then you find the true joy of the autobahn"
It’s a curious car, the M8 GC. I remember when BMW launched the current 8 Series, making some fanfare about it bringing new levels of luxury to the model line-up. Yet inside it’s no more splendid than a decently specced 3 Series. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice place to be and I think BMW build quality remains up there with the best, but the 8 is not exceptional amongst its BMW brethren.
Then there is the Gran Coupé part of the equation, which adds an extra set of doors. The rear seats fold flat, making it surprisingly capacious and I rather like the overall aesthetic, but those extra door handles do put it squarely in competition with the M5 and there is no doubt that the mechanically identical 5 is still the much more practical machine – and it costs about £20,000 less. Perhaps most importantly, there is also considerably greater kudos associated with the M5 badge.
Much as I liked it, I couldn’t help but wonder who would buy an M8 GC. I’d lob the same question in the direction of Audi’s RS7. After a while, the only answer I could muster was someone like my friend Phil Toledano (otherwise known as Mr Enthusiast on Instagram). He was once described by an employer as a pathological contrarian; the sort of person to spread marmalade when everyone else is obsessed with Marmite (even if he quite liked the branded yeast extract). If he ever found himself accidentally à la mode he would consider it a very grave situation and instantly seek to set himself far from the madding crowd. I feel the M8 might be for him.
And anyone who has access to an autobahn. The sleekness intuitively makes more sense at speed. Shoving the M5’s blunter phizog through the air seems a little wasteful if you have the option of an M8 Gran Coupé instead. Except that BMW’s figures actually have the M5 as considerably more aerodynamic than the M8 GC (the M5’s drag coefficient of 0.31 betters the M8’s 0.34). Which holes that theory below the waterline.
But this column wasn’t really meant to be about the car specifically. Rather the rarefied joy of travelling at a sustained clip. The happiness engendered by that curious calm which descended as the scenery blurred on the way back to Munich last week, reminding me of one of my favourite quotations, from Jochen Mass: ‘There’s a peace in speed that I’ve never found in stillness.’
