Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2008/02/03
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I guess I am (over)reacting to the bloating and sensation-numbing trends of the modern vehicle. Is a current Porsche fast? Of course. Does it handle well? Yes again. However, though you can get a heavy vehicle to handle, you can never make it anywhere as nimble and intimate as a light car. I suppose some of this is due to the emphasis on top speed: at 300 kph you have to deaden everything down and add mass to make a vehicle even vaguely drive-able by mere mortals. Perhaps on German Autobahns this make sense. However, I seldom top the english ton and I want to have fun at speeds where I am not lethal to myself and those hapless enough to encounter me. Give me a vehicle where I do the work of keeping the engine on song. I watch the road surface to manage my traction and braking. I stive to feel the tires touching the road and the vehicle responds almost to my thoughts rather than gross action. I no longer find this intimate connection in four wheeled vehicles. It is even getting hard to find it in two wheeled ones as well. So I run lightweight, small capacity motorcycles. Right now my favourite is a cafe'ed 66 Ducati single with something over 30 hp. If I am "on", it is fast, light and nimble; we function as one. If I am "off", I know right away as the communion isn't there. I know to slow down and wait for another day. In today's insulated, traction and braking control equipped, mobile entertainment centers, you have no idea who or what is on. Heck, it takes a half-an-hour of carefully ignoring the road to program the CD player. Getting back to Porsches, I feel they started to lose their way in the seventies. When brochures start to emphasize leather interiors, heated seats and mirrors, when "features" started the weight creeping up, when HP increased just to keep the performance the same, when intimacy and control were reduced to make things "safer" at high speed. Should Porsche drop its current model line? Probably not. Should they at least add one real sports car? Absolutely! Lotus makes the breathtakingly stunning Elise. Why Can't Porsche? Give me a vehicle that is the spiritual heir of the '66 911s, not one that is a gross caricature. Whew! Well I feel a lot better. Thanks, John On 2-Feb-08, at 2:18 PM, Henning Wulff wrote: > At 6:54 AM -0700 2/2/08, John Collier wrote: >> Only Morgan makes sports cars. Everyone else at best makes pimped >> out GT cars. Don't even get me started on Porsche! >> > > I'd be delighted to get you started on Porsche! :-)