Was: Re: Audi = stupid? ....plus WRX drive Is: Teenager First Car

[Steve Marinello]

Huw Powell wrote:
>
>
> Steve Marinello wrote:
>
>> ...except that unexciting can also = never really learning how to 
>> drive = VERY unsafe in dynamic, real world situations
>
> Why does a car have to be "exciting" for one to learn how to drive 
> properly?  I don't see that your conclusion follows from your premise.
>
> Reminds me of the 12/23 one year I came upon two teenagers in one of 
> their mom's BMW.  The skid marks went all the way up a hill in the 
> wrong lane, back to the right, to the car which was all tangled up in 
> trees.
>
> (Luckily they were mostly just shaken up)
>
> It's hard to do that in a "boring" car.
>

I disagree.  I think it's easier to have happen in a boring car that 
you're trying to push.  It might not feel as exciting in the boring car, 
but it sure turns out to be that way if they lose control. 

I'm not defining exciting as powerful, but I'll use it here to describe 
a car with a suspension and brakes worth a shit that make the car 
enjoyable to drive.  I've owned and driven enough 240's to know that an 
older one with soft springs/shocks can trip an inexperienced driver when 
it is put in a dynamic avoidance situation.  It is not a light car, 
which makes the out of control transitions worse.  My old '81 242 
GLTurbo was okay, and much better when stiffened up.  I had a '72 Fiat 
124 Sport Coupe on which I completely redid the suspension, as well as 
the engine.  My uncle, with many more years driving experience than I, 
all in DULL cars, took it for a spin and loved it.  Two weeks later, he 
called to scream at me that he'd almost killed himself while test 
driving a lesser powered stock '73 124 coupe.  He went around a corner 
too fast and the transitions in the softer stock suspension (and 
remember, the Fiat did not have a particularly soft stock suspension) 
threw him off and he lost control, luckily only hopping a curb and not 
hitting anything.  If the car doesn't have a decent suspension, and 
brakes, oh, and TIRES, the driver never learns how to feel the car and 
the suspension do their job or how to corner, much less to hit the apex, 
slow in - fast out.  It's completely non productive in a 'dull' car.  
That's why we all 'loved' tripping around in our fathers' 
Buick/Oldsmobile.  (Thank God, my dad had Fiats and Alfas after one, no 
two, Buick experiences...).

My old girl friend at Stanford wanted to borrow my '69 Triumph GT6+.  
She'd driven her mom's Olds station wagon, but knew how to drive a 
stick, sort of, from her grandfathers' 3-speed sled.  She didn't 
understand what the big deal was, so I took her out on a wet, abandoned 
tarmac after a good rain, ran it up to about 50 and told her to hold on 
because she needed experience short wheelbase transitions.  Faced with a 
blank look, I yanked on the handbrake and hit the brakes and put us 
through a couple of 360's...well, almost got through 720.  The point 
was, she'd never even felt anything like that before, or thought about 
what was going on under the car.  As a truly expert skier, she 
intuitively 'felt' the need to learn more after that and got pretty good 
relatively quickly.  She liked the car so much after that, pictures were 
taken with her and the car under an oak on the slopes of Tamalpais.  
(Damn it...she's got the only copies!)  But I digress...again.

The point is, in a more 'exciting' car, my son can learn more about how 
a suspension works and how it affects driving so to be able to react a 
little better in a panic situation.  I maintain that it is much harder 
to learn that stuff in a boring car.  A Miata is obviously a car with a 
lot of the attributes you need to teach, although it's not one he'll 
ever have as a car for as long as I can control it.  By that time, he 
should be fine with one!  A Mini wouldn't be bad, but it's smaller than 
the GTI and this is Houston, Texas, home of more big, bad trucks and 
SUV's than most places, with many driven by oblivious morons who don't 
know how to drive, turn or stop their vehicles with any degree of control.

Anyone got personal recommendations for driving schools?  The Audi Club 
never does anything around here, but I'd love for him to do something 
like that first.  But in any case, he will get on a track and learn 
something before too long.

I really need to get back to work....