mtbc | Performance cars offer the easiest driving

After I moved back to Ohio I drove an old Ford Crown Victoria. This is a larger class of sedan than is offered in Britain: it is not far off 5½m long and 2m wide. Combined with the soft suspension, the experience is very much like that of driving a boat. I liked some of the features like the white light, low down on the side at the front, that would turn on briefly when one activated the turn signal on that side, to make it easier to see the road onto which one is turning. I don't see features like that these days.

My next car was a newer version of the model, and the Police Interceptor variant, previously owned by the Ohio State Highway Patrol, available only as an automatic. This variant improves performance and robustness in various ways, including hardening the suspension, and it was quite fun to have people overtaking me notice my driver-side spotlight and quickly lose speed until I was able to give them a smile and indicate that actually it wasn't an unmarked police car they were speeding past. Still, while it worked fine and was designed for pursuit duty, I'd not say that the performance was outstanding.

When it came to replace that I looked around at the options. Cars such as the Ford Five Hundred looked interesting, especially with the option of a continuously variable transmission. In Europe I would perhaps have bought a Fiat Panda Cross (for Ohio winters) but the US market didn't offer such. Looking at the tradeoff between price and performance made the Subaru Impreza WRX STI really stand out while still being practical as a family car. So, I traded my ex-police car in for what is basically a Japanese-made rally car, available only as stick-shift.

It turned out to be the only car I've owned that I positively enjoyed driving. Given the money I'd buy another in a heartbeat; it's probably the greatest luxury I'd actually indulge in. Driving on the motorway on Friday in our Vauxhall Astra reminded me of what I liked about my Subaru. My Fords had been rear-wheel drive with all-season tires; the Subaru was all-wheel drive and I had summer racing tires on for much of the year, which definitely gripped better after the first few minutes' driving, and I switched to good winter tires (with the mountain-snowflake symbol, what's that called?) for the winters.

The handling and performance really were striking. Normally with a car if I want to change speed and direction there's some definite planning involved. With the Subaru, the planning was little more than a gear change, probably from sixth to fourth. The brakes or throttle would rapidly get me to the speed I wanted, and the handling and tires would get me to the direction I wanted without any skidding or squealing. All this was achieved in comfort as if it were all in a day's work. This expanded performance envelope really expanded my options and reduced the cognitive load.

So, when I was driving on our Lancashire day-trip, among the wind and the rain and the traffic I had some challenging contingency planning to do. Everything went fine, but I had to remain well aware of my available options because they were relatively few. I think that what made my sports car such a pleasure to drive was that it was far less work to keep contingencies in mind: it effectively opened up many more paths through spacetime. If something bad happened in poor conditions and traffic I had a range of escape routes, in terms of speed and direction, within easy reach. In the Astra, not so much. While I wasn't pushing my Subaru anywhere near what it could do, that meant that I was more free to just enjoy driving instead of actively planning it.