I recently bought a new car. I have been a fan of sports cars since I first started driving. I started with a Triumph TR4. I have always liked the two seaters. There was a Dodge Stealth Twin Turbo that was a bunch of fun, but it is more of a muscle car.
Career and practicality seem to overrun your daily driver choices and there have been less palatable choices through the years. Regardless, the new vehicle is closer to my 2-seater love. I can tell you that I get a kick out of having to get in the car and drive. As a result, I took out a subscription to Road and Track – a magazine I read as far back as the 1970’s. As I prowled through issues, I noticed a number of articles bemoaning the lack of naturally aspirated engines.
I am not totally tone deaf to the NA engine, but I sure think that the suggestion that it is superior is indeed tone deaf. My first real exposure to a turbo charged engine was with the Dodge Stealth. I get that there is some turbo lag – but I have to wonder if that isn’t more of an issue with automatic transmissions. You are not going to engage the clutch in a manual at idle speed. You are going to be adding power and engaging the clutch. I just think that in the case of the manual transmission, you overcome some of the lag. It is true that there is a bit of lag with an automatic. But that is usually limited to the initial start from a stop.
And to be realistic, there are turbo designs out there that don’t suffer lag. It seems that some creative computer implementation ought to be able to make this a non-issue for the average street car.
In some cases, it seems that the folks authoring articles feel like a car without a NA engine is a serious misgiving. That is misguided. Most of us don’t need those few extra milliseconds of speed. Frankly the turbocharged engines are both efficient and engineering wonders. Maybe NA engines and 2 speed transmissions fit the bill for some purists. I think for most of us the efficiency and overall performance of the turbo cars is the right choice.
With all of that said, I fear that the gas engine is not so terribly long for this world. We may all have to live closer to resources we need and closer to family, but it sure seems as if the electric vehicles will become more than just a choice for the environmentalists.
