“You don’t want to know. It would ruin the illusion, wreck every appealing reverie that those bright motor show lights and cooing onlookers once inspired.”
“Did you like it? Think it a shame that it never got built? Great. Let’s not let the facts ruin a lovely, wistful idea.”
As criminally jaded as it must undoubtedly make me seem, this has become the stock response I give when asked what driving a concept car is like. It is, apart from anything else, also a great privilege, a singular opportunity and a huge vote of trust and faith. Any drive like this always feels special one way or another.
But honestly, concept cars are for looking at; for exploring ideas, capabilities and potential. I find them fascinating, especially when they’re technically bold or innovative.
But as far as driving them goes… well, a seafood lasagne might look quite nice once you’ve topped it with sauce and grated cheese, but you wouldn’t actually eat it until it had spent a good three-quarters of an hour at gas mark five, would you?
The thing is, once it has been finished at the very last minute, delivered to the show stand still glistening with tacky paint and then admired by all and sundry, the initial fervour around the unveiling of a concept car soon passes.
From there on out, they don’t often get a lot of coverage. That’s only one of the reasons why hacks like me can end up driving one.
They’re usually rather unsatisfying stories to write, funnily enough, as much as these are often disobliging cars to drive in the first place – principally because how they actually drive is wildly irrelevant.
They can be slow, awkward, noisy, smelly, unpleasant and uncomfortable – but it doesn’t matter. Don’t write it, for God’s sake. Nobody really wants to know. Just pick out the interesting bits.
Filter out and expand on what might just survive to any production version or indirect descendant. Be a journalist.
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