- Sat Jun 27, 2009 9:42 pm
#126382
What do you think when you see one?
It's classed as a supercar by many, but is it?
I mean for me, supercars are the sort of car you buy with your heart. The sort of car that instantly makes you feel like a 5 year old when you look at it or hear it start up and makes your spine tingle just being near one.
Does the GTR do any of that for me? Nope.
Now I have a pretty good handle on why this might be - and it's pretty simple really. It's just too gimmicky.
I mean unless you're an uber geek, someone who comes up to you and starts telling you about the awesome PC they just built with 5trillion bytes of RAM and more processing power than a fleet of space shuttles most of us will switch off and not really care.
That's what the GTR is to me. That massively geeky kid sat in the corner telling his mate called Audi next to him about his ATESSA-ETS and fancy console gizmo telling him he can pull many Gs in a corner.
How can this honestly excite anyone? I have absolutely no doubt it's an awesome machine in many ways; ridiculously fast etc etc but it remains the sum of all it's computery gizmos and some nerdy guys in japan with lab coats and pens in their top pockets doing some lovely mathematics to make the car 0.001s faster around the Nurburgring.
I feel the same way about many new cars these days to be honest. The new 370Z - looks immensely pretty, has more power and is a little more compact in every way yet it has gizmos to rev match for you? Where's the fun? The most involving part of driving is knowing that I got that gearshift cock on, I kept the thing pointing in the right direction at some horrendous speed through a corner with a howling soundtrack and only a stereo for company.
Supercar? Nope, not for me.
Great machine? Probably one of the best.
What do you think when you see one?
It's classed as a supercar by many, but is it?
I mean for me, supercars are the sort of car you buy with your heart. The sort of car that instantly makes you feel like a 5 year old when you look at it or hear it start up and makes your spine tingle just being near one.
Does the GTR do any of that for me? Nope.
Now I have a pretty good handle on why this might be - and it's pretty simple really. It's just too gimmicky.
I mean unless you're an uber geek, someone who comes up to you and starts telling you about the awesome PC they just built with 5trillion bytes of RAM and more processing power than a fleet of space shuttles most of us will switch off and not really care.
That's what the GTR is to me. That massively geeky kid sat in the corner telling his mate called Audi next to him about his ATESSA-ETS and fancy console gizmo telling him he can pull many Gs in a corner.
How can this honestly excite anyone? I have absolutely no doubt it's an awesome machine in many ways; ridiculously fast etc etc but it remains the sum of all it's computery gizmos and some nerdy guys in japan with lab coats and pens in their top pockets doing some lovely mathematics to make the car 0.001s faster around the Nurburgring.
I feel the same way about many new cars these days to be honest. The new 370Z - looks immensely pretty, has more power and is a little more compact in every way yet it has gizmos to rev match for you? Where's the fun? The most involving part of driving is knowing that I got that gearshift cock on, I kept the thing pointing in the right direction at some horrendous speed through a corner with a howling soundtrack and only a stereo for company.
Supercar? Nope, not for me.
Great machine? Probably one of the best.