What makes a car fun to drive?

[deaf_rattle]

the driver.

You can make anything fun.

[samlloyd]

loosing grip when coming on boost in a rwd.

[Mike-]

none of the above..





165 tyres, 30 yr old suspension, 1200cc 4 speed manual, 0-100km/h in 20 seconds, most fun ever

2nd that, old datsuns are shitloads of fun

[Boosted_162]

At the moment - comfortable and auto . Have a bad back so need good seats, and my left knee isnt strong enough to use a manual because of my accident. Hence why the GS300 is perfect for me

[bbq1988]

Being able to put the pace on RWD's in the dry and more so in the wet

[Bling]

and my left knee isnt strong enough to use a manual because of my accident.

use of a clutch is optional

[Boosted_162]

and my left knee isnt strong enough to use a manual because of my accident.

use of a clutch is optional

Nah, im quite attached to my smooth auto with cruise control

[mjrstar]

my current car has a reasonable amount of those 3 but it needs a little bit of refinement, ie: rides a bit too harsha and is a little noisy.. but hey it's a work in progress.
i'd rate them in this order:
1st handling
2nd braking
3rd power

having #3 any higher up the list would be dangerous in my opinion.

sure a car needs to have 'character' but not too much character otherwise it's a pain in the a$$.

ie 10k worth of paintjob is over the top, too much hassle to maintain.

[1I1]

my first car had none of the 3 options yet i found it to be real fun to drive. RWD '82 Lancer with 1300cc 4banger and 4spd gearbox. i think the engine was only rated at 40kw@flywheel... when new!

[RBPOWA]

rear wheel drive st185's with an open diff scare me,and a rwd st165 with a locky is just horrible!

[Mr Revhead]

none of the above..





165 tyres, 30 yr old suspension, 1200cc 4 speed manual, 0-100km/h in 20 seconds, most fun ever

this man has it

[Adoom]

loosing grip when coming on boost in a rwd.

I did that on a corner. BUS! WALL! BUS! WALL! BUS! straight road.....wheeeeeew.
Errrr. Beating people with prettier, faster looking cars than mine.




GO THE STARVIA!

[Leon]

Anything that makes you smile. My MR2 AW is not very fast, it's loud, it isn't particularly comfortable ... but I love it. It puts a smile on my dial even if I am just going to get groceries. When I go over windy empty roads, well that's just the bees knees.

[Lith]

Hmm for me, overall:

1. Power
2. Grip
3. Brakes

I had a good hard think about power and grip, and initially grip was winning for me but then I decided that its a case of "up to a point". Most modern cars hold on pretty well to start with, and a few minor changes you can get them handling measureably better - most cars have those basic things (decent tyres and wheels at bare minimum) done. Going beyond that, you start compromising ride quality for non-thrashing fun. Thats the stuff where you have a girl in the passenger seat who doesn't like the car bouncing around, drunk friends you don't want to make spew, or a long trip back from where-ever you were summer holidaying.

Brakes aren't fun at all, whether utilising grip or utilising power are what you dig - braking is the part that splits up the fun bits in my opinion. Its a necessary thing to go fast on a track, but thats an unfortunate thing - it ends up with you going slower, and slower is always less fun.

Power however, is only there when you want it - it makes open road driving less painful when there is shit traffic around, it helps you do skids (more power than grip ftw), it is an easily quantifiable thing to brag to other guys about "Yeah I have 700hp @ wheels mate" means the same thing to every guy everywhere, and there isn't much like the feeling of putting your foot down and feeling like just hit warp factor 9. Guys have been craving power since the start of time, we make movies about it, we write books, we read, we dream about it. Big V8s, turbos, explosions, Jet planes, thunder storms, skids, world domination, it all points the same way.

[~SlideWays~]

@ Lith re: braking.

But what about passing someone under brakes before the mainstraight chase?

Tis' good stuff.

Without good brakes you'd have to brake earlier and the guy with better brakes can hold out longer.

just my 10c

[Lith]

But what about passing someone under brakes before the mainstraight chase?

Tis' good stuff.

Without good brakes you'd have to brake earlier and the guy with better brakes can hold out longer.

Of course you can have a bit of fun with good brakes, but the occasional chance to outbrake someone hardly ever happens - and its only fun afterwards when you know you have got away with it which coincidentally is where you should be enjoying the grip/acceleration part of the equation.

Also, I don't recall seeing anyone saying anything about track racing - far more people than not hardly ever go on the track so I was talking in the "more likely to be relevant" sense. Also cases where I have seen people with better brakes with less power have often ended up looking the most frazzled after having a battle with a higher power car as they are working on the edge to try and outbrake the other car and end up on a less than ideal line overcommitting to braking - as if they were behind the powerful car will have already sorted out its line and obviously have started braking etc.

The result of such situations can often end up with the good braking/low power car nipping ahead on corners and ending up with a car behind that just needs to find a straight - the nifty thing there being that when you are trying to pass effectively while braking into a corner, where you place yourself is very important so you can make sure you get a good line out and carry a decent exit speed etc. If you have lots of power, all you have to do is make sure you have got a decent exit speed onto a straight and then you have the new few hundred metres to drive around the slower car. This is all on the assumption both cars have similar grip levels, seeing as grip was left out of this particular instance
.

[1I1]

Lots of brakes - as in when you hit the brakes it pulls up real quickly or each time you go for the brakes you get similar braking performance? racing at a track i wouldn't have thought it would matter how quick you can go down a straight (with-in reason say 180km/h vs 200km/h) if your car isn't predicable it can make it harder to push as you may not have the confidence in it? Hopefully that makes sense and you get what i mean!

[Flannelman]

i should have been more specific.

"Lots of" is very general.
Thinking of it now, lots of brakes means braking 50m out from any corner and licence loosing speed and wipe off speed faster than wiping a white board. which is good, but most cars brakes work best when warm. In fact, all parts work best when at operating temperature. But over working leads to over heating. Like any compontent, over heat any of them and you start to lose what you have.
Brakes too hot, loose braking efficency
Enging too hot, loose power
Tyres too hot, loose grip

modifying in any area is usualy for more reliability. so it wont break when pushed and preforms consistently when pushed. i should have been more specific

its only my second poll posted, so i shall have to be more specific in future

[summin]

Anything that makes the person in the passenger seat sh*t themselves a little...simple as that

One of my proudest moments was taking a mate of mine (he's been racing since he was a kid, carts, classics...etc etc) for a drive ages ago. As soon as I hit 2nd gear his expression changed and he let out this loud "shhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitttt"....

Was beautifull

[Mr Revhead]

so your drivings that bad?!


sorry man.... you walked into that one