As you'll read in these pages next week, I've just had three days driving the Lamborghini Aventador and it's got me thinking. And I've come to the conclusion that road cars are getting too powerful these days.
The Lambo might be four-wheel drive and have some pretty amazing electronics to keep it planted on terra firma but, seriously, 700hp is ridiculous. Even though I've been driving for 23 years, and have experienced some crazy machinery in my time, it scared me. Fine in a straight line but hit even a sweeping bend and I couldn't trust it to not throw me into the Armco.
Yes, 700hp. When I was a teenager, obsessively pouring over car magazines, a supercar needed just half that amount of firepower to be considered mad, bad and dangerous.
Those cars always had their power sent to the rear wheels only, they never had air bags, rarely had anti-lock brakes and almost always took years for even talented drivers to master. You had to respect them, wary that they would bite when you least expected it. They were brutal, rare and incredibly exciting. I worry that we've now had too much of a good thing because I'm starting to feel that even 450hp just isn't enough for a performance car these days.
One of the most incredible cars I've ever experienced is the old Porsche 911 Turbo. It was Porsche's flagship for almost 15 years and, even in its most powerful LE incarnation, its engine displaced 3.3L and put out a puny (by today's standards) 330hp. That's less than half what the Aventador expects its drivers to handle. And yet, here's the thing: the 911 Turbo was the world's fastest accelerating production car for many a year and every time I've driven one I've thought, "this is enough".
They're scary, formidable cars that, even though they went out of production the year I started driving, excite in a way few others can.
The enemy for sports and supercars, of course, is weight. The Bentley featured on page eight this week, for instance, weighs just under 2.5 tonnes and, to achieve the speeds that drivers expect these days, the Continental needs ludicrous amounts of horsepower.
And this is fine, to a point. The real problems come when inexperienced young drivers, who are privileged enough to possess the requisite funds to buy these things, get behind the wheel. All the electronic wizardry, they think, will keep them safe from harm. But 700hp takes a lot to control and, inevitably, some drivers will meet an untimely end when they run out of luck, talent or road space.
Where will it end? Ferrari is reportedly soon to unveil a successor to the Enzo and it will produce a minimum of 800hp. There isn't a road in the world where you'll be able to fully exploit that kind of power. And don't think for a moment that I've gone all soft - it's just that, for me to truly feel connected with anything or anyone, I need to know that they're not out to kill me.
I'm recalibrating and getting real. I don't need a billion horsepower to get my motoring kicks - I just need a car that's nimble, relatively light, nice looking and one that loves cornering, not just going like a bullet in a straight line. And you know what? My humble Scirocco fits the bill nicely. But when the timing is right, and there are sufficient funds gathering dust, I'll always find space for an old 911 Turbo.
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Votes
Total votes: 1.8 million
Ashraf Ghani: 923,592 votes
Abdullah Abdullah: 720,841 votes
LILO & STITCH
Starring: Sydney Elizebeth Agudong, Maia Kealoha, Chris Sanders
Director: Dean Fleischer Camp
Rating: 4.5/5
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
Key facilities
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The specs: 2018 GMC Terrain
Price, base / as tested: Dh94,600 / Dh159,700
Engine: 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder
Power: 252hp @ 5,500rpm
Torque: 353Nm @ 2,500rpm
Transmission: Nine-speed automatic
Fuel consumption, combined: 7.4L / 100km
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Volvo ES90 Specs
Engine: Electric single motor (96kW), twin motor (106kW) and twin motor performance (106kW)
Power: 333hp, 449hp, 680hp
Torque: 480Nm, 670Nm, 870Nm
On sale: Later in 2025 or early 2026, depending on region
Price: Exact regional pricing TBA
Game Changer
Director: Shankar
Stars: Ram Charan, Kiara Advani, Anjali, S J Suryah, Jayaram
Rating: 2/5
Is it worth it? We put cheesecake frap to the test.
The verdict from the nutritionists is damning. But does a cheesecake frappuccino taste good enough to merit the indulgence?
My advice is to only go there if you have unusually sweet tooth. I like my puddings, but this was a bit much even for me. The first hit is a winner, but it's downhill, slowly, from there. Each sip is a little less satisfying than the last, and maybe it was just all that sugar, but it isn't long before the rush is replaced by a creeping remorse. And half of the thing is still left.
The caramel version is far superior to the blueberry, too. If someone put a full caramel cheesecake through a liquidiser and scooped out the contents, it would probably taste something like this. Blueberry, on the other hand, has more of an artificial taste. It's like someone has tried to invent this drink in a lab, and while early results were promising, they're still in the testing phase. It isn't terrible, but something isn't quite right either.
So if you want an experience, go for a small, and opt for the caramel. But if you want a cheesecake, it's probably more satisfying, and not quite as unhealthy, to just order the real thing.
