Wednesday, May 9, 2012

An Ending, or an Ascent? Why Should We Keep Building Performance Cars?


You're sitting stopped at a traffic light, on an ordinary day, making an ordinary journey to the shops. Coming up behind you, you hear it, that low, purring rumble of a high performance V-12 engine. Beside you, in your field of vision, up creeps the most beautiful thing on four wheels you have ever seen. You cannot help but be stunned by the experience, the car is proportioned just right, following the Golden Mean perfectly, and curved in all the right places. The light flicks green, and off it roars, that low purr of the engine suddenly bellowing out into a loud howl, almost a shriek. As you pull away, you realize your hair is standing at end. You cannot help but be jealous of the guy driving such beauty, such engineering perfection.
Unfortunately, many people do not see it like this. To them, such cars are, at best, a waste of space on the road, and at worse, an absolute scourge that the likes of should never be seen coming out of factory doors again. They'd have a point, too. Cars like these, cars such as the Aston Martin DB-9, or the Lamborghini Aventador aren't exactly what one would call friendly to the environment. They drink fuel like a swimmer devours food after a meet, spit lumps of carbon di- and monoxide out their tailpipes in massive excess, and can't carry much more than you, the clothing you're wearing, and maybe a small sandwich for lunch. Critics of these cars just don't see the point to them, not in the slightest. But, they're dead wrong. High-end, expensive cars do serve an honest purpose. On a practical level, safety features are premiered, introduced, and perfected on cars like these. They're a chance for engineering departments to push the boundaries of what is currently held to be possible, they further the ideals of design, both aesthetically, and engineering-wise. On a more subjective level, cars like these, on the right road, at the right time, with the right conditions can offer the most moving, emotional, and pleasurable experience one can feel through ordinary circumstances.
Unfortunately, these cars always have one major Achilles heel: practicality. One of the hallmarks of a supercar, jokingly stated by British car reviewer James May as he paid homage to the classic Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing in an episode of Top Gear, is completely useless trunk space. Many sports car makers do not include methods of transporting luggage, or, if they do, it's typically very small, to the point where it seems like it was an afterthought. Obviously, there are a few exceptions, as Aston Martin does have a tendency to make a car that works well on the road, then turn it into a racer, but Aston's counterparts often do not take into consideration that people want a car that can transport both them and their luggage, or dismiss the idea entirely, saying that luggage will only spoil the handling and acceleration. So, owners of such cars are stuck with woefully inadequate trunk space. Sports cars also fall down in another area of practicality. With their sporty suspensions, tuned to have no give in corners so you go through them flat and neutrally, and their hard tires, and sometimes, their racing seats, they are horrendously uncomfortable on a typical road. Real roads have bumps, cracks, they're uneven and can be riddled with potholes. All of which require a much softer ride than any sports car maker would even want to think of giving. Cars like the Maserati Quattroporte have often been marked down on their ride, Bengt Halvorson, executive editor of High Gear Media's car review publications, remarked that the "Quattroporte's ride quality also might not be to the liking of all luxury buyers; it can be a bit busy on rough pavement surfaces. Comfort isn't really a strong point for the Quattroporte..."
Another point that people love to bring up when arguing against the sports and luxury car is the damage they do to the environment. Again, there is a very strong argument in this point. The Aston Martin DB 9, a British sports coupe, emits around 389 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer, according to Europe’s Energy Portal, a private organization that reports consumer energy consumption. Compare this to a Ford Focus, something people drive every day to and from work, which emits, at the highest, 167 g/km. The difference is staggering. It is widely believed that this carbon dioxide emission from cars is a major source for the rise of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, causing the average global temperature to rise to the levels it has. Another strike against the environmental impact sports and luxury cars have is their fuel economy. Let's take another look at the Aston Martin DB 9. The US Department of Energy's fuel economy website lists the DB 9 as getting a combined mileage of 15 miles per gallon. Compare this to the Focus's combined mileage of 31, and one starts to wonder.
Both of these arguments stand strong against the luxury and the super/sports car. However, technology is always advancing, and over time, at the very least, the ecological argument will fade away as engineers find solutions to getting more distance out of every drop of fuel without sacrificing performance. Even with these arguments against them still standing, we must remember the tradeoff: these cars are often the birthplace of automotive technology. Features such as traction control, or anti-lock brakes, or even technology we consider to be standard, such as disc brakes, all first appeared on higher-end luxury and sports cars. Safety Research & Strategies, an independent safety research center, lists traction control as being found first on BMWs in the 1980s. Anti-lock brakes, a technology invented by the aeronautics industry, found its way into the automotive world through Cadillac in the 1970s. Even something as basic and simple as disc brakes first found their way into the automotive world by high-end cars, being found on Lanchester cars in the early 1900s. Without these cars, we wouldn’t have this technology on our cars today. Can you imagine what it would be like, to have to deal with drum brakes while driving quickly on a track, or not have the assistance of a traction control system when things start to go sideways? It would all end in tears.
Sports cars are not meant to be your basic, utilitarian runaround. They are designed primarily for one job: enjoyment. They are designed to enhance the pleasure of getting from point A to point B, a task that is entirely required for living. If you need to haul things, then find something better suited for the job and use the right tool for the need. If all you need to do is get yourself, and maybe a small amount of personal accessories somewhere, then yes, a small, two-seat sports car is perfect for you. If you need to get a garden archway and some mulch home from the nursery, then you should probably look elsewhere. This specialization can seem a bit daft and outdated, but it makes sense. Most people just need to get from one place to another, they don’t need to haul heavy machinery to the job site. This is where sports cars shine. Sports cars break the drudgery of the journey. The simplicity of their design helps you focus during that brief moment where everyone is moving along, life is good, and you can have some fun while on your way to work.
This is their essence. Sports and supercars are all about the experience of driving. Forget the destination, you’ll get there eventually. It’s how you get there that matters. In achieving this goal, their engineers do something absolutely fantastic. They push the boundaries of what is possible. In a way, supercars are very much the same as superstructures, structures like the Millau Viaduct in southern France, or the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. The Millau Viaduct is currently the tallest bridge in the world, standing at 1,125 feet tall. Jeremy Clarkson, a professional car reviewer for Top Gear, makes the point that "they could have built it lower down with some RSJs and some planks of wood..." It could have been done so much simpler, without investing in such a massive structure. Clarkson goes on to say, "They didn't. They built something amazing, something astonishing, something wonderful. They went berserk." The same sort of thinking lies in performance cars. Both the bridge and the cars are "an example of humans doing what humans do: pushing boundaries, pushing ourselves, taking what can't be done, and then doing it.” Without the thinking behind these cars, without that mentality of, "I wonder if I can do that... let's find out if I can," we wouldn't have the progress that we do. Without that thinking, we, the human race, would stagnate.
Even with these arguments, however, I have to agree with Jeremy Clarkson again, when he states in his review of the Aston Martin Vantage V 12, "I just can't help but thinking, thanks to all sorts of things...cars like these will soon be consigned to the history books." These beacons of progress are being attacked from all sorts of angles, from an environmental aspect, from a utility aspect, from those who wage their wars on speed. These cars are very much necessary. Sure, they can be a bit daft, being impractical when you need to move something more than just yourself, some personal items, and maybe one passenger. Yes, they can be damaging to the environment right now. But that's the beauty of progress. Technology can solve the environmental problems, and impracticality is purely a matter of taste. To many, there is no better feeling than whisking along an open country road, with the sound of a powerful engine providing the soundtrack to a glorious experience. These cars are an inspiration; they are proof that we, the human race, are progressing. Are these cars something that we should keep building? Absolutely. Our future depends on it.

No comments:

Post a Comment