THE SPORTS CAR AFFAIR

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30952, 7 January 1966, Page 7

THE SPORTS CAR AFFAIR

[By RICHARD GOTT in the “Guardian,” Manchester. Reprinted by arrangement.]

r pHERE are two caricature portraits of the sports car owner. One is the R.A.F. moustached, cloth-cap enthusiast. out in all weathers, with the hood down. (More often underneath the bonnet than behind the wheel.) The other is the suave, appropriately dressed figure who drives an improbable car at unheard-of speeds with an equally improbable girl at his elbow. They get away to exotic places and get up to unmentionable things—or so the advertisements would lead us to believe. I fall into neither of these two categories but I do possess a fast sports car, and I shall, finances (and the law) permitting, continue to do so, in spite of the obloquy which frequently descends on me as a result. My Left-wing friends are loudest in their protests. Their arguments fall into three categories: the moral, the political, and the trivial. The latter is perhaps the most convincing, since what they really object to is the fact that the car is too small. Why should a car which takes up so much road space house only two people? This argument crops up most frequently when some poor unfortunate has to crawl in behind the front seats.

During the last election, putting public duty before private pleasure, I sold my Sunbeam Alpine and bought a Hillman Imp, which, while not causing much additional satisfaction to my long-legged friends, did at least cheer up the dwarfs. It also enabled the election to be fought on a more proletarian level. The Liberal candidate, more faithI ful to his principles, or less I ashamed of his affluence, cami paigned throughout from an E-type Jaguar. The complaint about the back seat of sports cars is, however, legitimate, and manufacturers should take notice of it. My present car—an MG B is. if anything, worse than the Alpine. The advertisements always suggest that no fast car is complete without a dreamy blonde in the passenger seat and that (therefore?) space behind the front seats is unnecessary. But from my own experience the blonde apparitions are few and far between. The political argument against fast cars runs something like this. Since these cars are not available to everyone, it is unjustifiable for an individual to drive one just because he has the money for it. The moral argument is similar; in a world of poverty and inequality should one who is concerned to eradicate these evils flaunt such a conspicuous example of affluence? These objections, to the sports car in particular, arise out of misconceptions about its cost Such a car need cost little more than a family saloon, and if I prefer to spend money in this way rather than another, that is a matter of private morality

which has nothing to do with' the public good. The implication of these; criticisms is that I should be I content to drive a People’s Cai—a Volkswagen or a Mini. But a People’s Car. alas, does not provide me with what li want from a motor vehicle. It does not (most importantly) allow me to drive, in safety and in comfort, at speeds in excess of 100 m.p.h. Mr Fraser is about to curb my passion for speed by imposing a 70 m.p.h. limit, but even this will not lead me to exchange my MG B for something slower. A fast car is not just a fast car. It is also a safer car. As a piece of engineering it is in every way superior to cars which :re cheaper in price and slower in speed. ■While the Left wing talks in terms of politics or morality, my other friends think more pragmatically in terms of speed. They regard fast cars as a danger and a menace. Doubtless jealousy comes into it, but this is not an overriding factor. Deep down inside may people there often seems to be an irrational hatred of speed. It is as though they thought that speed itself is wicked. And the idea that other people might actually enjoy travelling fast seems to arouse deep-rooted puritanical feelings.

To my mind, although speed provides pleasurable sensations, it is just a means to an end. Overriding all other considerations is that of convenience. Fast cars do get you there quicker. Even in London, I have found that the difference between going by Alpine and by Imp is substantial. And in the country a fast car can make all the difference between going somewhere and not making the journey at all.

It is, for example, quite possible to drive from London to Oxford just for lunch —a journey which one would hardly consider if more time was spent in travelling than the time available at one's destination.

Looked at from this point of view there is nothing immoral about speed. It is merely an adjunct to civilised living. It ensures that social life is not merely an exchange of pleasantries with one’s neighbours, but a regular interchange of views with friends or relations who may live many miles away. But it would be dishonest to see a sports car in purely utilitarian terms. With speed, travel becomes a joy instead of a tiresome necessity. A fast car is a work of art. To drive it is like having a Chagall in the sitting room. It is sheer aesthetic pleasure. Why deny ourselves these things? Of all cars on the roads, sports cars are the best looking.

Yet even they have serious drawbacks in design, whether it is the fussy frontage of the TR4, the ugly bump in the middle of the Spitfire, the unsatisfactory sheer of the Alpine, or the disquieting override of the MGB’s bonnet. No manufacturer has yet given a designer his head. The E-type was a step in an experimental direction, but its bulbousness reminds me too much of those great rubber dinghies designed for air-sea rescue. Still, sports cars are immeasurably more attractive than anything else available, and the car owner who takes pleasure in the looks of his vehicle should not be criticised any more than the train spotter who delights in the aesthetic appeal of a steam locomotive, or the sailor who appreciates the line of a boat and the set of its sails. The instincts are the same.