Every car enthusiast always dreams of owning a sports car as they are fast, they look awesome, they thrill but they are expensive. If you are a person who loves sports cars, who loves driving, or who watches popular car shows you might have heard the terms Driver’s car or fun to drive car or an enthusiast car. Let’s understand what the mean and what makes a car really fun to drive. These cars can bring a smile to your face while driving no matter how frustrated you are. Even a small cars can bring serious fun while driving. Fun to drive cars offer you speed, performance, control and excitement while driving.
Here are the characteristics of Enthusiast cars.
Steering Wheel Feedback
Good characteristics of a real Drivers car is good steering wheel feedback. Good steering feedback is basically the movement of a steering wheel in your hands when the car goes over bumps and when the car goes over an undulating surface of the road. Another good characteristic of the steering wheel is when you rotate the wheel the more weight it gains as the car speed increases. There is more pressure on the steering wheel. A good steering wheel allows drivers more information and when drivers have more information; drivers can drive more safely. If you are driving on rough terrain or irregular surfaces you can slow down your car and take necessary precautions.
High Performance Tires
Tires are like shoes, different types of shoes available for different purposes similarly car tires are available for Racing, Off-Roading and all season for daily driving. Driver’s cars have performance tires that can offer you top notch performance with maximum grip and traction. High performance tires have stiffer sidewalls that are reinforced with steel or Kevlar that reduces rolling of the tire when you make steering inputs and that transmit more motion through the steering wheel. They have directional asymmetrical tread pattern. Speed and sharp cornering is no problem with performance tires. They can withstand higher temperature and give you maximum ability on tracks. You can extract maximum potential of performance vehicles with these tires. If you want to accelerate the car quicker, the car should have high performance tires. High performance tire even reduces braking distance.
Suspension set up
Most people think suspensions are used for rider comfort which is not true but the role of suspension is to maintain constant contact with the road and ensure there is traction to move the car forward. Suspension is always tuned as per the road condition where the car will be driven. To get a better steering feel and handling characteristics, the car should have better suspension set up. Performance cars use stiff springs. Body roll and lean can be controlled with stiff suspension. Performance cars have low ground clearance for low center of gravity and hence low suspension travel. Maximum aerodynamic efficiency can be achieved with specific ride height. Stiffer suspension doesn’t change the height of the vehicle. Performance cars should ride at constant ride height and for that stiff suspension set up will help. Performance oriented vehicles like Hyundai N, Ford Fiesta RS are also being driven on tracks and tracks are smooth and don’t have any rough patches.
Brakes
Braking should be more powerful than car speed, time to stop the car should be much lesser than time to accelerate the car. This stands true in the case of fun to drive cars. Fun to drive cars are made for outstanding performance out of the car whether on daily driving condition or on tracks and hence Performance cars should have high performance braking systems. Braking system, especially rotors, tends to get hot during harsh braking. Braking pads are designed for maximum performance in severe driving conditions. Braking pad compound is different in performance vehicles. There are many manufacturers like Brembo, Stoptech who manufacture performance braking components. Most people also prefer to do occasional track days, they need additional performance from the car hence the car should have improved braking. With fun to drive vehicles you drive a little faster and hence cars require brake upgrades.
Weight Distribution
When a car has perfect balance it massively improves the vehicles stability when cornering and it consistency of performance. Perfect weight balance is achieved when all four wheels of the vehicles is press down the road with exact amount of force. When a car has 50:50 weight distribution that means car has perfect handling. Weight distribution includes front and rear ratio, side by side ratio and cross weight ratio. Car weight always moves around its center of gravity When car is braking, Turning or even accelerating. The weight moves its direction of the car due to the suspension. When you turn the car to the right then weight moves to opposite direction and increase weight on left tires. When you drive straight and brake hard then front suspension is compressed and weight moves to front of the car. During sudden acceleration the rear of suspension compressed and weight moves to rear of the car this results in understeer of the car. Enthusiast cars have perfect weight balance that greatly improves the car handling.
Power to Weight Ratio
Car reviewers always talk about horsepower per ton or power to weight ratio. Power to weight ratio is a vehicle’s ability to accelerate faster. Imagine a truck and a small car standing at a signal when the light turns green. Performance cars makes more power for its weight than regular cars. These cars have higher BHP per ton weight of the car. Most modern performance cars have small capacity turbo engines like Hyundai GDI Turbo or VW TSI turbo that makes more power per ton which reflect into solid performance on highways and tracks.
Let us know in the comment box below which is your favourite fun to drive car.