Does sheer engine power really guarantee more driving pleasure?
When it comes to super sports cars, but even with fast saloons/station wagons/SUVs, manufacturers are outdoing each other with performance data. This seems to be getting even worse with electric cars. Lucid Motors, for example, has announced the Air with 1080 hp, a sedan weighing over two tons. And Maserati's new MC20 mid-engined sports car (pictured above left) has just a modest 650 hp, but weighs around 1500 kg. And the Maserati easily measures almost 2.2 meters in width (probably including mirrors).
So you have to ask yourself where you can still experience driving pleasure with these relatively large and really powerful cars.
Let's draw a comparison with the Lotus Elan , known for its great driving pleasure : 126 hp (in the most powerful version) compared to around 600 kg, the width is a slim 1.42 meters (a few centimeters more with an exterior mirror). With the Lotus Elan, you can avoid narrow country roads with little traffic and drive on the narrowest mountain passes without having to worry about not being able to cross or wearing out the rims because you get too close to a kerb. Although one horsepower is offset by a good 4 kg and not 2.3 or less kg (as in the Maserati), you don't have to complain about a lack of power in the Lotus either.
The same applies to many an Alfa Romeo from the sixties or the lively minis of the Innocenti, Autobianchi A112 Abarth or similar. We have just published a nice driving report on the latter. And there we described how you can still have a lot of driving fun with a meagre 70 hp and a power-to-weight ratio of 10 kilograms per hp.
