Who knows best ?

The weather outside is great today, the sun is shining again no more scary thunder and winds. So rev-heads what do you say we get out of our little laboratories, wash our greasy hands, pick up our tools and rearrange the tool box, put on those Ray-Bans and hit the road!

Those who Drive and others who move.

Pause here! Hitting the road is one thing but going somewhere is something totally different; I had always divided fellow drivers to two basic categories: those who wake up every day kiss their wives goodbye and drive to work with their small shinny cars, all quite and smooth with an interior smelling like bubblegum. These drivers are, sadly, the majority of the people you see while caught in everyday traffic. They consider the car as a mean, a mean of transportation and comfort. As for the second categories of drivers, and I sure am one of them, they are the people that might spent an overnight tuning up their cars or searching the net for performance parts and when the sun shines and the little birds crawl out of their trees, these are the people that break the silence of the cities and towns by their monstrous noisy, roaring engines. They drive because they love it, because it’s fun and challenging. These people communicate their thoughts to the car and vice versa.

Today I will try to be less technical because I sure wish that the “first category drivers” will read and share ideas with us. So let me raise the notorious question “who knows best?”

Because safety comes first.

You are driving along, everything seems to be fine and peaceful until your car senses a great change in the steering angle sensor, your damper stiffens to keep you balanced and your traction control starts killing the motion of your wheels! What happened? Well as you were driving the truck in front of you dropped a box so you simply dodged it and continued as if nothing happened. That’s great actually how cars today are very responsive in case of any potential threat. With this degree of safety you can spend your whole trip minding your own business, thinking about your pay checks, what movie will you be watching in the cinema….

But sometimes week seek absolute joy when driving, it’s good to be kids from time to time!

However, sometimes cars can be very annoying when it comes to response! Our beloved vehicles become arrogant and rude and restrict our control over them. Just as if they know best! Starting from the GPS systems that constantly interfere by pointing directions arriving to the gearbox, steering and engine. Manufacturers tend in some models to design a car that when you drive it you feel that you are using a joystick and playing a driving game on the computer. In such models you really are living a virtual reality, nothing is truly as it feels. You also are not allowed to choose your own gear; instead they give you the option of sharpening your gear response. And when you decide to unleash the bag of torque you have under the trunk, warning signs and inhuman letters pop out on your dashboard telling you that you are such a naughty kid and then you start feeling that the engine response isn’t that promised by the catalogue of the car neither by the dyno test you just performed in a local garage.

I don’t know why, but by chance the name E coupe keeps being brought up whenever I am talking about cars these couple of months. But yes the new E coupe is very analogue except for the suspension, the car is very responsive and if you are a talented driver you will enjoy dancing with this car.

However, if we go ahead and dare to compare Maranello, Italy to Stuttgart, Germany we will find a huge difference when it comes to the Analog/digital battle.

The Ferrari 458 italia is a clear and unarguable example of how Ferrari engineers are thinking. The car is basically a speed shell with a joystick inside. You can barely feel the wheels’ friction with the surface. Even with their racing Enzo, and all the simplicity and the race appeal you find inside it still feel too digital, too I’m playing “Need for Speed shift”!

But just look at the amazing new Porsche 911 turbo, the car still looks like Dr. Ferdinand Porsche primitive sketches. It’s still aggressive with no limits or boundaries but the limits of what its mechanical components can take. The car is loyal enough to make you break your gearbox in one lap over the Nurburgring. It is the kind of cars where the driver can shout out loud the words I know best, shift down and cut the corner.

But when it comes to economy cars Toyota and its mechanical and analog driving experience had also proven highest efficiency!