This week's test car was a new warm hatch from Nissan, the Micra 160SR and I was interested to note one of the subtleties of the 160SR's chassis. The expected large diameter alloys were present and able at a full 16 inches. However it was their width that raised my eyebrow, a mere 185 in cross-section. My immediate response was one of the "is that all?" type, but then I thought deeper. I've long been bemoaning the onward march in tyre sizes, something perhaps driven as hard by sales figures as it is by ultimate dynamic needs.
Here, on this Micra, perhaps we have finally reached the point of inflection on the hitherto endlessly rising trend line of tyre size which is beginning to approach lunacy. Marketing bods are winning out in the battle with common sense. There's no doubting some of the benefits of the larger tyres: increased grip in the dry and more resistance to slippage for example. Yes, grip is higher but in many cases it is somewhat cancelled out by the similarly rapidly increasing weights and cornering speeds aren't rising very much. Also, ride quality, tyre noise and rolling resistance are all negatively impacted, not to mention cost.
Increasingly I'm finding that cars have almost too much grip to enjoy them to the full. The subtleties of on-limit handling are getting more difficult to come by on the public road as the speeds necessary to indulge in such fun and games are becoming immoral - and dangerous. As a prime example look at the car we drove last week, the
Ford SportKa. This nine-hundred-and-something kilogram hatch is more generously shod than the larger and heavier hot hatch legend, the Peugeot 306 GTi-6, but ask an enthusiast and they'll tell you that there is no competition as to which offers the purer driver experience. People appear to have let lateral g and appearance become be-all-and-end-alls and forgotten about the enthusiast's reason for driving.
If people refocus on why they drive they'll begin to see the losses in their experiences if they endlessly pursue raw figures and statistics. A very good analogy is life. At the end of the day the journey isn't a race; it's an experience to cherish. There should be twists and turns, ups and downs, easy sections along with more challenging bits. Above all it's not necessarily about how fast you reach milestones along the way; it's about how much fun you had getting there.
Dave Jenkins - 23 Mar 2006