Automotive

Yes it’s childish.  I guess some of us never grow up.  Constantly looking for every opportunity to have her sideways. To tease out her tail and keep her balanced there on the cliff edge of orgasm. Or tweak her helm to step out learily and catch like nervous cold tyres out of the pits in the dawn mist of your daydream favourite scene from LeMans.   Looking for crossed up wiggles and giggles over brows or any kind of slip and slideways is addictive, devotional, obsessional - but always and preferably of opposite lockitude.  

In a sanitised world of political correctness, speed awareness courses and 20mph limits the choices that make up the ’86 stand out as both insanity and genius.  Deliberately choosing to limit the grip, is but one example.  More keen to catch the first flight out to Driftsville than a pre-65 swb 911, if you blow the dust of your Autocar collection you will find that the ’86 matches stride for stride the performance of the legendary original M3 and the 70s 2.4 911. This is no coincidence. For a modern production car the petrolhead details of having such a focused Chief Engineer like Tada-san are obvious.  The more you look the more you find.  The view from the seat evokes the 911 or 458 due to the view of the wings.  The headrests reverse to allow seat fit with helmets.  The NASCAResque tacho; and its careful orientation (change up in normal driving at 12 oclock out of your peripheral vision). There is extra thread on the bolts on the suspension strut top mounts to take an aftermarket brace.  The firewall is predrilled for gauge lines.  The ground clearance is the same as an Auris for real world spoiler kerb clearance.  A set of of four tyres fits in the boot with seats down (and a trolley jack).  The straight ahead driving position.  The height of the folded rear seat aperture allows a bicycle to go in without removing pedals; or two golf bags if you enjoy your walk ruined.  A 13” Macbook slips in the glovebox. The powersocket cover can double as a plug for the engine noise port in the cabin footwell.  The pedal weight and position for heel and toe is to die for. And the auto version could have been a dis-ah-ster, but Tada-san saved it by making for clutch lock up in manual mode so you can still throttle steer.

But you won’t read about these little bits of genius from most journalists’ coverage; most of whom couldn't discriminate between the sweetheart handling of the 86 versus the BRZ’s stretchy shopping trolley understeer, nor properly investigated the auto behaviour let alone touched on the subtleties above.

So, in a world of downsized turbo lag and misinformed greenwash I fear Tada-san’s Hachi-Roku will go down in history as the last hurrah of affordable driveability and involvement, with no-one noticing. 

Shame