How to have the best drive of your life

Опубликованно 19.08.2020 16:30

One day, sooner rather than later, all this is going to end. The coronavirus will be, if not entirely eradicated, then at least well under control, and in our brave new world we’ll once again be free to savour all of the luxuries that, prior to the outbreak, we took for granted.

We’re not quite there yet, of course, but one of the old pleasures that we can indulge in again is going for a drive in the car, just for the sake of it. And when we do, it’s best that we be prepared, because we won’t be alone; the whole country, a pressure cooker of unrequited desire and ambition for the open road, will be joining us.

How, exactly, should we be preparing ourselves for this glorious moment? You could, of course, just head out and hope. Or you could, with just a little thought, have a drive you’ll remember for the rest of your days. All you need to do is make sure that not only your car is ready but you too.

So I guess the first, most urgent question is: do you have the right car? Because unless you can muster something of the calibre of the Porsche 911 GT3 RS, there’s really no point even reaching for the keys – or so some people would have you believe. In fact, the list of wrong cars is far shorter than that of right ones, and if you’re reading this, the chances of you being on the wrong list are smaller still.

All you need is a car that’s good to drive. If that sounds obvious, it’s not, because what almost everyone infers from such a sentence is that it must be good to drive fast. A sports car, in other words, or an overtly sporting car at the very least.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Cars that are good to drive just need to be well engineered, and they come in most shapes and sizes and at all price points.

Allow me to provide a personal example. Two years ago, we had a need for a family hack, a car to keep for 10 years and run into the ground. I didn’t want to pay huge money for it and there was no requirement whatsoever for it to be fast or sporting, but it was important to me that it was good to drive nevertheless. A mid-spec, 1.5-litre Volkswagen Golf did and continues to do the job to perfection. It has lovely steering, a slick gearbox, decent damping and commendable balance for an everyday car. You can tell within five minutes it was made by people who love to drive. A cheap-as-buttons, decade-old Ford Focus has much the same going for it.

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