I don’t know much about cars: to drive one you don’t have to, something I used to feel a little ashamed about until the language spoken under the bonnet changed to computer talk and excluded any normal car owner who took it upon himself to learn the basics of servicing his own vehicle and fix minor problems. Now I say, “If it’s any help I’ve got a set of jump leads” without feeling rather inadequate.
Not knowing much about a car suits the profile of the Point A to Point B type. My father was one. “What’s a car for? To get from Point A to Point B. Why spend enough to buy two homes on a car?” That makes sense on paper, but what seems like a small room on wheels is, for the person in the driving seat, bigger than two mansions: it is a world of sensation, anticipation and enjoyment.
Yes, you can get from Point A to Point B in any sensible car, and you will be the same at Point B. But some cars can change your life. And when you realise that you are going to be dead longer than you are alive, it makes sense to make the most of living. Spending a healthy number of millions on a car has nothing to do with status or power: it’s making the most of life. And, considering how much time is spent travelling, this makes a lot of sense. Why climb out of a car when you can rise out? When finding your car in the parking lot means looking for where people are crowding, you are living.
Speed thrills and supercars are fast, very fast. But the thrill of a supercar is far more than its speed because what I felt as a boy when I saw a Mercedes Benz 190SL in the street feels the same as when, in my rearview mirror, I catch a glimpse of a Lamborghini Huracan slicing its way through the traffic :it is the excitement of seeing something extraordinary, something which changed the title of the book. Cars like that are going somewhere: they show the way things could be, the lines, the power and the finish of the possible. That is why they are called supercars.
Lance Armstrong wrote a book It’s not about the Bike… (unofficially retitled “It’s about the Dope”). My book would be It’s about the Car because a car which makes heads turn does not just get you from Point A to Point B: it heightens awareness of every aspect of the journey, be it long or short. There’s the frisson of anticipation, the satisfying stretch of limb into the low-slung profile and the perfect sound as the dihedral doors are docked. When your ride is pure pleasure from start to finish you cannot help but emerge a happier individual (if that’s possible) at its end. And being happier never did the world any harm.
William Blake’s words “Tiger, tiger, burning bright…/ What immortal hand or eye / Could frame thy fearful symmetry” are not out of place here. To have crafted such massive power into shapes so svelte or crouching, so chiselled or kinetic is wondrous. People never say, “You don’t need a Hockney” to someone who has just paid over a hundred million for one. Why then do they say, “You don’t need a Bugatti Chiron.” ?
They also say: “What’s the point of a 300 km/h car when you’re only allowed to travel at 120?” (unless, of course, you happen to live near an autobahn). An ignorant question: it’s not about the speed, but the sense of latent power. There’s more satisfaction in the cool control of unmatched power than the exercise of it (until, of course, opportunity allows, which it will). Knowing the response of the car to your lightest touch is empowering, the sensation of its speed overwhelming, a whiteout of motion that is too much to process.
Driving a supercar is a multi-sensory experience: there’s 118dB of roar to send campers running for safety, the pulse of power rising from the mid-mounted engine, the textured touch of the pure metal controls and the sensation of the naturally aspirated engine taking your breath away.
Supercars are not one-dimensional: for some they will be their means of crossing distances very, very quickly, like the Concorde did the Atlantic; for others the adrenalin of driving, every journey an experience, hopefully not the ultimate. Admittedly, some might want heads to turn and enjoy their exclusivity.
Never having been in such a vehicle I can only imagine all this. Am I over-sensationalising the drama of torque and turbo? No, more likely, not knowing what makes these cars the force they are, I am leagues away from understanding the reality of experience. Were I to drive one, the full-bore charge would be unforgettable. I would come to the conclusion that the real reason money came into existence was so that supercars could be bought.
Opinion is that the supercars of today may be the last. The advent of hybrid power is the prelude to the all-electric. Much of the sensory experience of the supercar will be lost: speed will remain, but much of what provides the metal treat will be gone. There may be doubt about this, but one thing is certain: if I die without driving a supercar I will be the poorer for it, not literally, but figuratively.
