A buddy texted me to say that he was envious of the vehicles I’ve pushed not too long ago – Aston Martin Valhalla and Audi RS5 – and to let me know that he is in a Hyundai i10 courtesy automobile in the intervening time.
Maintain on: you’re the one envious of me? I’ll admit that I’ve had very good occasions in some excellent vehicles not too long ago, however to expertise the sub-tonne kerb weight of an i10 and revel within the snicketiness of its five-speed handbook gearbox, and to be doing so for the very first time, is one thing value envying in itself.
I believe I used to be extra excited for him than he was for me. The i10 is a automobile that is simply 3.67m lengthy and just one.68m throughout the physique, and people can be good attributes even when the smallest Hyundai wasn’t an honest automobile to drive, however it’s.
If I would been slung the keys to it having by no means tried one earlier than, I believe I would have been thrilled. So thrilled, in actual fact, that if I may replicate a drive I took in 2023, alongside among the 1553 miles of Eire’s Wild Atlantic Approach in a Kia Picanto, in one of many three vehicles beforehand talked about (Jaguar, Ferrari or Hyundai), I am by no means certain which I would decide.
From knowledgeable standpoint, it could be one of many new ones, in fact. And each disguise their weight (round 1700kg for the Ferrari and certain 2700kg-plus for the Jaguar) properly, however there’s a restrict to what quick steering and intelligent suspension can do.
In the identical means that Individuals say there is not any alternative for displacement, relating to driving on small, flexible roads there is not any higher rightness than lightness. For me, much less weight is solely higher.
This is likely one of the causes I am so seldom upset to climb again into my 990kg Audi A2, no matter what new automobile I have been driving. And it is why probably the most thrilling automobile I’ve pushed previously umpteen years has been the 385kg LCC Rocket, a design from greater than 35 years in the past.
Actually, I am unable to consider a automobile and particularly a contemporary one which I would not have most popular if it had weighed much less. Even when we’re speaking Caterhams, the 440kg 170 mannequin is probably my favorite within the Seven vary as a result of, regardless of its energy compromises, it’s the lightest. And if I have been to specify my very own (and I got here shut), I would spend on small weight financial savings.
Is there an optimum car weight, I ponder? I am undecided there may be.
Bikes are mild however mine, at round 200kg, is healthier when there are not any luggage or baggage racks fitted. Karts are lighter nonetheless, however on the final one I owned, I took off as a lot cladding as I may and nonetheless drilled some holes in what was left. And so it goes on: I want my outdated 14kg, unsuspended mountain bike to a 35kg, battery-assisted Lime rental bike.
My health club trainers really feel higher to tug on than my nation strolling boots. I believe the important thing to those issues is that the much less inertia concerned, the extra the machine appears like an extension of your physique.
