Aged nine, I could quote the 0-60mph time and price of anything vaguely interesting with a success rate of 90% – higher if it was a 911. If my dad was reading the papers on the weekend, I’d sidle up, mag in hand, and pester for an impromptu fact test. As for most of us, car stats were the original obsession.
For a grown-up road tester, the obsession is no longer, as you might imagine, with those same statistics, although we do try to screw the absolute best times out of performance cars and that requires determination. Something that now matters just as much is simply getting behind the wheel of as many cars as possible.
It’s harvesting those subjective impressions, building up the inventory. Pokémon on an epic scale: gotta catch ’em all. The analogy extends to the game’s ‘evolution chains’. As little Charmander begets Charmeleon begets Charizard (apologies to non-millennials), it isn’t enough to drive a BMW M240i; you also must be au fait with the M2 and M2 CSL.
Obviously there’s a degree of professional thoroughness at play here. To describe the steering in an Omoda 5 as purgatory, you need to have driven a Nissan Qashqai and a Kia Sportage. If you get the chance to have a go in a Ruf CTR Anniversary, it greatly helps to have pedalled a 964 911 Turbo and a McLaren 600LT.
I suppose the ability to offer an opinion on a Cisitalia 202, a toilet-spec DS or a Prodrive P25 also gives your typical car journalist a warm, fuzzy feeling. You’re tapping into the physical manifestations of an immensely storied industry.
All this is on my mind because last week I got to tick off a very rare and interesting car. I was in Worcestershire to see an early BMW 320 (among the earliest, in fact – 1975) for up an upcoming story.
It’s co-owned by Thom Williams and Neil Phipps (obsessives, obviously), and while it is a lovely thing, it wasn’t the 320 that had me sweaty-palmed. It was Neil’s Honda Civic Type R, tucked in the corner of the lock-up. He saw me fawning. Wanna have a go? Er, yes, mate.
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