What’s your dream car?
Because I know nothing about the intricacies of motoring, my own answer to that question has no choice but to creep into the realm of fantasy.
What’s my dream car? Well for a start it would look like an actual rocket. The seats would be made of that memory foam that no one can afford. The top speed would induce time travel and it would be more fuel efficient than the sun. Oh, and it would fly.
Well, last night I may not have driven my dream car (which, now I read that back to myself, is essentially the DeLorean from Back To The Future), but I did drive what many consider to be one of the ultimate luxury cars, the Porsche 911 Carrera.
I don’t get nervous about driving posh cars any more. Throw me an £80,000 Range Rover and I’d happily rag it around country lanes like it was a wooden go-cart. Give me a Jaguar XK and I’ll drive you home blindfolded*. But there’s something about a Porsche, something that says “please be careful with me”, which is why I was slightly shaking as I turned the key.
After the initial excitement of driving through central Brighton in a proper sports car, I settled down and started to pay attention to some of the finer details.
For a start, it was a lot heavier than I was expecting. The steering wasn’t exactly hard work, but it wasn’t feather-light either. This meant that while the car is beautiful and elegant to look at, it feels meaty and solid on the inside. It’s the car equivalent of a Beef Wellington.
The engine made all the proper grunty noises when I finally got to open up on the duel-carriage way, but it wasn’t as poky as I was preparing myself for it to be. I found myself sitting in a Porsche 911 Carrera actually being disappointed by its performance. I felt like such a tosser.
I did really enjoy the ride. It was mega comfortable and there’s a certain amount of ego inflation that can’t be avoided in a car like this. I didn’t just overtake cars, I overtook cars. That’s not to say that I was speeding (of course I wasn’t) but there’s something to be said about knowing that you are definitely driving the fastest car on the stretch of road you’re on. It’s quite a sensation.
The dashboard looked like KITT from Knight Rider and this made me very happy.
For a reminder of both that dashboard and David Hasselhoff’s abysmal acting, please watch this clip:
So, in conclusion, I like the fact that I can say I’ve driven a Porsche 911 but I think that ultimately the full experience was wasted on me. I’m sure there are a million people out there who would happily sell their own grandmother for a car like this, but I’m just not one of them.
It’s just a car!
That said, I’ve driven a Porsche 911 Carerra. Ha!
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