5 Reasons Why Lightweight Special Road Cars Are Pointless
All those man hours spent by engineers trying to whittle down weight in everything from wing mirrors to seat backs can all be rendered useless because the owner can’t stay away from Burger King for more than a few hours. Shaving weight by a few grammes here and there makes sense when you’re dropping a lean professional racing driver behind the wheel, but when your driver weighs as much as two Lewis Hamiltons it all starts to feel a bit pointless.
2. Someone riding shotgun will unbalance everything
Dedication to weight savings - and the distribution of the weight that’s left - can easily be undone in a road car by the simple introduction of an extra passenger. Some manufacturers build into their weight distribution that a single driver will be in the car. Others make allowances for a passenger to get yourself an even weight distribution. Either way, that means that to get the optimum out of your car you either have to enjoy going solo all the time, or make sure you have a hell of a lot of friends on standby.
3. You can never carry anything with you
I’m one of those people who has to have a clean car, inside and out, at all times. Even so, there are often times where I have assorted things lying around, and that soon adds up. Whether it’s gym kit in the boot, bags of shopping, or maps in your glovebox, every single unnecessary thing in a lightweight special is a middle finger to the engineers who built it.
4. Speccing luxuries is unacceptable
As much as I’m all about the driving experience, anyone who’s spent time driving a pure performance car knows the novelty can wear off pretty quickly on a long journey. So unless your lightweight special is purely for track days, you’re probably going to want to tick a few boxes for things like air conditioning and a stereo. And many people do, attracting ire from keyboard warriors. The thing is, as much as I can totally relate to why people go for these luxuries, I’m with the keyboard warriors on this one.
Let’s take the Renaultsport Megane 275 Trophy R. That stunning hot hatch is one of the most sublime cars I’ve ever had the pleasure of chucking around my favourite back roads. Unfortunately, after many motorway miles in one, my left ear was in serious pain on account of there being almost nothing behind me to protect from road noise. But you put up with all that rubbish, and the lack of stereo, and the fact you’ll be boiling your bits off in hot weather because of the purity of the experience. Otherwise just get a 275 with the trick Ohlins dampers and be done with it. You’re not impressing anyone with your red wheels and tacky stickers.
The way it tends to work is that a manufacturer releases a car, builds a load of hype about it, then starts coming out with special editions to keep people interested. Supercar manufacturers such as Lamborghini are particularly guilty of this particular practice, which involves taking the original car and removing many things, and then they charge you more for the pleasure! The Aventador SV above costs £315,000, which is over £50k more than a standard Aventador. Sure, you get some more aero and extra power, but everywhere else stuff has been removed, so where’s the £50k going? Labour?
It’s all a massive marketing con, and if you buy into it you’re probably getting laughed at by bean counters in Italy. Spend your days at the track? Then sure, buy up lightweight specials all day long, but if all you’re doing is cruising about in city centre traffic and occasionally going half throttle on a country lane, it’s just a waste of time and money!
Comments
That’s the priciple of Porsche:
The lighter it is, the more money you pay
Finally someone who said it, i always read about the newest lightweight version “that lost 30kg!”. So basically what you’re saying is that if I throw my suitcase in the back the $ insert couple of hundred/thousand dollars here that I paid for the lightweight version is fully undone?
People so spend money to strip their cars out for track days so this is effectively during it for you from the factory.
And also its pretty cool to have a special car!
You bring up a lot of good points M8
I don’t really agree! If engineers were not pushed to make lighter cars we would have 4-ton cars because “you’re gonna go to Burguer King anyways”. When you’re going to the race track, every gram adds a hundred. But on the road, every 100 grams take mile per gallon… Doesn’t matter that later you’re going to burguer king or that you forgot your gym bag… Because you would’ve done it in a lightweight car and in a heavyweight car. The lightweight car is still 30kg lighter 😉
The thing is, losing 100kg (+all comfort with it) on an aventador and adding a fixed wing isn’t going to make it corner like a BAC mono (my dream car). So it would be better to keep the air conditioning (which would improve your comfort (and maybe therefore performance) and keep the luxuries.
That’s honestly why I like GT cars so much. Sure, a track ready supercar is probably very awesome…at the track. I would have to own a high dollar sports car that makes me swear like a madman every time I hit a mild speed bump or pothole. It’s also a reason I would rather have a Camaro than a Corvette, The Camaro is going to be streetable and practical enough with it’s back seats (albeit small).
Sort of how you should never buy more clutch than you’ll use (Don’t buy a ceramic stage 3 racing clutch for your daily driving car, unless you hate yourself) you should never buy more car than you’ll use.
𝘉𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘳
It like Carthrottle app on iOS, the more you want, the more you wait…
You guys don’t understand why people buy these cars. You have a daily and then you have a lightweight for track/canyon-attack days.