Know the worst kind of car in the world? The kind that thinks it’s sporting. These are the cars that gull you with their performance figures, racy appearance or both into believing there’s actually something to be gained from upping your effort level in your progress from one point to the next.
And the disappointment arises not merely when they turn out to be nothing of the sort, but with all the supporting members of the cast that have been drafted in to help create the illusion: the harsh ride, excessive road noise and go faster bits of trim in the cabin. To me a car that makes this promise and then fails to deliver on it is far, far worse than one that simply doesn’t bother. Because then, instead of trying to convince you it’s something it’s not, it can be enjoyed very simply on its own terms.
Because a car does not need to be sporting to be good to drive. On the contrary, it is those very pretensions of sportiness that so often stop a car from being good to drive. Our mid-spec family Golf for instance: seven years old, 138bhp and not a scintilla of sportiness about it. And every time I climb aboard I wonder anew at the slickness of its gearbox, the precision, linearity and feel of its steering, its beautifully judged damping and superlative ride quality. The most obvious example of the opposite approach that springs to mind is an early Audi TT. They got a lot better over the years but imagine the impact at the time of a car that was a landmark in visual design, pretty damn fast for the era but lacking entirely any genuine reward for the enthusiast driver. They just really irritated me.
