"This club won't be here in 50 years," said the man. "The cars today, they're just all electronics and plastics. Disposable. There won't ever be any Classic or Veteran classes with these modern cars in it...."
I was within the premises of the Sporting Car Club of South Australia, an old and wealthy South Australian institution. On this weekday, the grand inner-city house that forms the clubrooms was peopled with elderly men, filing books in the excellent library, answering the phone, and performing the other duties that make a 1200-member club run smoothly.
I was their guest, and was being helped by them to a very large degree. Complete with Nikon, tripod - and about 200 of the club's collectible car brochures - I was taking photographs for a book that I am helping to write. At that moment I was explaining the reason for my presence in the club to a member who was setting up chairs for a function.
"You see, " I said, "we're after good quality photos. The cars that we're covering are too old to still be in good condition, but they're not old enough for anyone to have restored them. So we're photographing these pamphlets to provide some of that material."
"Oh yes," the man said with interest. "What sort of cars are you covering?"
"Well, all of the turbo cars that have been sold in Australia. That includes cars like the Pulsar ET and EXA, Cordia Turbo, Charade Turbo..." I trailed off, as the man was shaking his head.
"Just disposable cars," he said.
He then went on to make his comment about his club disappearing within the next half century. Having heard his views about the most popular sporting cars of the last 15 years, I was hardly likely to disagree.
"Cars these days...." he shook his head. "I got out of the motor trade in 1964 and since then...." In the way of old men, he kept trailing off. "I've got a JE Camira, and y'know, when a sensor went wrong they ended up changing all of the sensors - and then the computer! We used to have a saying: if the engine's got fuel and spark, then she'll run."
I was their guest, but that did not mean that I could let this tirade of rubbish continue unchallenged.
"That is still all you need," I said, "spark and fuel."
He opened his mouth to speak but I continued.
"With your JE Camira, you can open the bonnet and pull almost every sensor lead off and the engine will still keep on running. It only needs one sensor - the crank-angle sensor - to work."
He looked at me wordlessly, obviously having absolutely no idea of what I was talking about.
So why, exactly, do old car enthusiasts believe that modern cars - and sometimes that means cars up to 20 years old - are to be derided?
I think that more than any other reason, it's because they don't understand them. The car's technology is a mystery, and that is frightening to them. But it is not the presence of the technology itself that is the issue. After all, they're comfortable with colour TV and VCRs and mobile phones - and they probably don't understand how those technologies work, either. But since they never understood how domestic appliances like radio worked, they're happy to apply the same unemotional faith to the workings of the home electronics that they have all their lives. The real reason for their dislike of modern cars is because they once understood how cars worked, but no longer do - it's the withdrawal of knowledge that is too much to handle.
It was certainly vastly ironic to hear the same man a few moments later authoritatively discussing with another member the PC software package used to assemble the club's magazine.....
Over the years I have been lucky enough to both own and drive some very good cars. Having a car with power, with strong brakes and with excellent handling is a delight for which I am prepared to spend most of my disposable income. However, I have also become very aware that the joy of driving is simply not related to the machine being driven.
When I drive my $1000, rusty, 1968 Volvo 142, I relish the solid feeling of the body, the long-travel suspension, the way in which the thin-rimmed steering wheel is backed by the wide, rectangular speedo. It is not a car to drive fast; it is a car to cruise along in. When I drive my Audi S4 - which cost about 50 times as much - I can travel much faster, brake much harder, corner with more lateral g's - and do all of this in vastly more comfort. I enjoy driving that car too. And when I pick up a press car I immediately enjoy it, literally whether it's a Mercedes or a Daewoo Matiz.
My stand-out drives include threading the Subaru STi WRX through the Grampians National Park; throwing the glorious Peugeot 206 GTi around tight and windy roads; and powering the 5.7 litre V8 Commodore away from traffic lights in a long spurt of power. All fairly predictable? Probably. But those favourite memories also include the Sunday morning drive to the shop for milk, where I took my partner's JB Camira and decided to make the purchase at a local country town instead of the neighbourhood deli. The drive there and back was an absolute and almighty buzz, throttle-steering the car on the edge of adhesion down the curves into the valley and then screaming back up. Without a doubt, it is one of the best drives I have ever had. And another: the fast (and cheap) Daihatsu Handi Turbo I once owned was so much sheer fun to drive that the modified VL Commodore Turbo I also had in the carport seldom moved.
Simply, to a great extent it doesn't matter what you're doing it in; if you love driving, every car is its own reward.
I've held that view for some time, so I was fascinated to also read it in a book on driving, Superdriver - Discover the Joy of Driving, by former European Saloon Car Champion, Sir John Whitmore. First published in 1988, the book takes a much more psychological approach to driving and the driver than most high performance driving books. For me, his final paragraphs in the book rang so true.
After referring to his own car - "the economy model of a popular small car" - he goes on to say of driving it:
It is an old familiar friend which has become an extension of me, and I get a surprising amount of pleasure from driving it. Because it is so slow, it requires considerable skill and ingenuity to get anywhere quickly, and I enjoy the challenge of using momentum instead of power to keep the speed up - and the fuel consumption down. I can drive it very smoothly indeed, and entirely effortlessly. This is the magic of driving to me, and since it has little to do with speed, it is available to me every time that I get into the car.
Two or three hundred horsepower underfoot may be exhilarating on the track, but on the road I prefer the sensuous feeling of flowing along a winding lane, an alpine pass or even among other traffic, relying on the contours of the road, the momentum of the car and the roll of the body to smooth out the changes in speed and direction.
In any case if the joy of driving is to you nothing more than dashing along... in some exotic machine, you are destined to spend most of your motoring life disappointed and frustrated. An expensive car is most unlikely to transform the inner state of the driver....
That last point is so true... an expensive car is most unlikely to transform the inner state of the driver. It is also considerable solace if you can afford only a very cheap car. Don't believe that when you can buy a car fifty times as expensive, the joy will be fifty times as great. If you love driving (as opposed to impressing people), any car is a wonderful experience when you're pushing the envelope - whether in smoothness, economy, or cornering adhesion.
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