Why modern cars are no fun

It might be a strange thing with which to lead, but bathrooms are quite the crucible for revelation. Much like the moment Doc Brown fell off his toilet, bashed his head and came up with the flux capacitor, the application of Tingly Mint & Tea Tree shower gel onto some tender bits recently prompted an epiphany: a universal equation I believe captures the essence of what makes something fun to drive – or not.

And via the twin metaphors of Chinese whispers and a mathematical mystery box, let’s see if we can crack the Theory of Everything (Fun) and win the Nobel Prize for (pseudo) Mathematics.

For a long time there seemed to be a directly proportional relationship between motive power and the entertainment a car provided. And in a world where your average hatchback failed to generate any g-force in any direction, this made sense. What’s more, in the absence of driver aids, more power also demanded more skill; I give you the BMW E30 325i, for which empty wet roundabouts were a thing of beauty. Or the Porsche 930 Turbo, for which they weren’t.