Can electric cars ever be more than white goods? We drive the first wave of enthusiast-pleasing pioneers to find out if they can challenge the classic establishment.
It’s likely that among the cars we have here, for those of a certain age at least one bounces off the page, rebounds off memories of teenage bedroom walls and slams straight into your affections. Hands down, for me it’s the Cossie. Not for me Porsches, Ferraris or Lambos. For many others it was the same – why? Because this was a Ford Sierra – a car that, albeit initially unloved, swiftly became as much a staple of British life as Woolworths and Bullseye. Only this Sierra had a turbocharged fourpot and a rear wing seemingly large enough to perch Concorde on. Oh, and with some relatively minor modifications, could be tuned to 350bhp and beyond, blowing automotive exotica into the weeds.
Keys on the table – I grew up hating the Testarossa. It seemed to exemplify everything I detested about the Eighties. Four-wheeled cocaine for the personality deficient; a Ferrari for whom saying they owned a Ferrari was more important than driving one; (questionable) style over substance – the opposite to a tuned Cossie. However, much as you need to be of a certain age to appreciate certain things – oysters, whisky, Pink Floyd – your first proper experience of a Testarossa will blow away any preconceptions. It’s sheer theatre – yes, there’s no getting away from its hedgerowtroubling width, but it’s also low, very red and festooned with the era-defining accoutrements we simply don’t get now. Pop-up headlamps, side strakes, antennae-like mirrors? Pass me the pastel shirt and loafers.
The Audi Quattro was by no means the first four-wheel-drive road car, but prior to this they were exotic curiosities or (slightly) sanitised off-roaders. The UR-quattro was something different. Previously, the performance car was largely defined by an even number of cylinders, usually naturally aspirated and rear-driven. The Audi Quattro stripped all that away with a warbling five-pot and a turbocharged surge that brought white-knuckle wastegate-whistle adrenalin to a relatively mass-market executive coupé – one that looks like it’s been pounding the weights in the gym. The sheer brutality of designer Martin Smith’s vision is still staggering. Remember – the Quattro was launched when the condom-beaked MGB was still on sale.
It’s hard to see this shape of Jaguar without thinking of anything other than the old establishment yet, when new in 1979, the Series III did set the cat among the pigeons. No, really, it did. For the first time Jaguar contracted an outside firm to pen the lines of one of its saloons. Pininfarina subtly altered the Series II’s glasshouse, roof, grille and rear lights to create a new and elegant silhouette. It was hardly a wild departure from what had come before but the combination of foreign design expertise, plus some modern touches to the inside did set it apart – largely for the better.
With its diminutive dimensions placing a wheel at each corner, the Mini became the blueprint for all the best city cars to come – though its breadth of talent always extended far beyond the ring road
Enzo Ferrari famously stated – in the early years of his firm’s road car career – that his cars would be solely 12-cylinder powered. The practicalities of that decision probably didn’t sink in at first, but by the late Sixties, even he had to admit defeat, first introducing the V6-powered 206 and then the 246GT Dinos
Classic Cars reader Jon Ranwell has always fancied driving a Lotus Esprit ever since The Spy Who Loved Me was released. Will reality match celluloid dreams?
The Honda Insight (ZE1) was powered by a 1.0-litre petrol three-cylinder with the firm’s VTEC variable camshaft profile technology, but that wasn’t even the Insight’s party piece. Instead of a conventional flywheel, it used a 2.5in thick 10kw electric motor
Comparing the Daimler to a Tesla Model S might not seem to work at first, but both offer a quiet, refined and rapid drive. Sporting pretensions are clear from both machines, as is the aspirational nature of their respective brands.
With formative memories of the post-war period, David Blunt has always had a soft spot for the Willys ‘Jeep’/ Ford GPW. Over 70 years since his first sight of one as a boy, will a hand-to-hand encounter with this wartime relic prove liberating, or require Blitz-spirit endurance?
