UNDER-BONNET CAPACITY CAN SWAY A PROSPECTIVE BUYER’S PURCHASE, IT DOESN’T NECESSARILY MAKE IT A BETTER DRIVING VEHICLE
Less is more? It sounds like something you’d say by way of an apology, doesn’t it? But is less ever really more? I reckon maybe it is.
A large part of my career over the years has been the merciless thrashing of other people’s cars and motorbikes in the name of science. Or road testing, or something like that. Which means that I’ve been lucky enough to sample not just new metal over the years, but also the various trim levels and specifications of the same car. And it is this experience that leads me to understand that sometimes, less can indeed be more.
I’ll start with the most recent one; the new BMW X3. Okay, so not my cup of tea personally, but if you’re in the market for a new set of family wheels, you could do worse. Now the X3 brat-hauler is available with three distinct drivelines, including a top-shelf, 293kW turbo-six with a mild hybrid and a mid-speccer with a plug-in hybrid driveline and 220kW under your clog.
Meantime, the entry-level variant is a two-litre turbo with – again – a mild hybrid set-up (basically a big starter motor that can also lend a bit of oomph when needed) and just 140kW. But you know which one I’d buy? Yep, that base-model variant. Why? Because it goes well enough to satisfy any family-wheels requirements and it’s a hell of a lot cheaper ($86K plays $104K and $129K).
But more than that, the entry-level version with its lighter overall weighbridge ticket and less mass over the front axle is just a nicer driver. It steers a bit more faithfully and since it’s isn’t carrying the plug-in model’s battery pack, it’s a more athletic gadget overall. Didn’t see that coming, did you? Neither did BMW’s PR team, I should add.
But the BMW ain’t the only example of this. I’ve always thought the Jaguar F-Type in V6 form was a nicer thing than the fire-breathing, supercharged V8 model. Let’s face it, if the F-Type doesn’t exist to remind you of an E-Type, then I’m missing something. At which point, the V6 model (which still has a handy 250kW) sounds and feels more like an E-Type and is just a nicer thing to hurl around than the heavier V8.
And there’s more … Remember the FG Falcon Ecoboost with its two-litre four-cylinder engine? Thanks to the science of weight distribution and mass centralisation, the turbo four-banger Falcon was the best Falcon at the time to actually drive. However, thanks to memories of the dire, original four-cylinder Commodore, buyers stayed home in droves.
Fancy another one? How about the current-model Audi A3, S3 and RS3 family. The base-model is good but nothing to write home about, and the RS3 has 400 barely tamed horsepower. Which means the 300-neddy S3 emerges as the nicest of the three to drive. No, it doesn’t have the snot of the RS3, but it still has plenty and it doesn’t constantly feel like a big dog on a short chain, like the RS3 does.
So what about the cars that attract people like us to a magazine like this?
Well, when I was a kid, playground wisdom held that the Holden 253 V8 was a better thing than the 308. These were the days when 308s were eating their own camshafts inside the warranty period, so maybe there was some science to it. Even so, the 253 was considered a better all-round thing if you didn’t count Newton-metres. So, less was deffo more in that example.
Even today, although I now understand that the 308’s grandson, the fuel-injected 304, is probably the best Holden motor ever, I can also argue a case for smaller motors in things like EHs and HRs. Fundamentally, I wouldn’t even consider transplanting a V8 into one of these. A stout 192 red or 208 blue motor would be about perfect, I reckon, based on the rest of the package.
Also, a hot six in an EH just feels ‘right’ to me. It looks right when you pop the lid and if you can’t make an 1117kg EH Special boogie with a couple of hunnert ponies and a five-speed ’box, then you aren’t trying. You’ll also have yourself a car that won’t be trying to kill you every time you hit the gas, won’t require huge (and heavy) brakes and super-sticky, expensive tyres, and won’t handle like the legendary lead-tipped arrow. Neither will you have to fear the roadside chat with Constable Unstable of the HWP who was beaten as a puppy by an EH driver.
And let’s not forget that there are now 1.6-litre hatchbacks that could tear a Brock Commodore in any sort of race. Not to mention electric cars that are super fast in a straight line. So playing the nostalgia card is even more important if we want our cars to stay even a little relevant. And, again, isn’t that why we’re here in the first place?
Creeping Crawlers
Look, I know this isn’t an antique machinery magazine, so I won’t make a habit of this, but I figured some of you lot might be a tiny bit interested in old stuff that chugs and grinds and helped build this joint. Also, gadgets like old tractors and excavators are beautifully honest, often brutal contraptions and for that alone, I find them interesting.
But there’s also a strong emotional link for me, which is the real reason I dig crawlers and crawl all over diggers.
When I was a real tiny tacker (like, not even school age) my dad had a mate who ran a fruit farm in the rainforest up behind Kingscliff right at the top of NSW.
And among the lantana and orange-red dirt was a wee crawler thingy that was trotted out whenever kids were present. Dad’s mate loved to throw whatever nipper was handy into the crawler with him and take them over the edge of what looked – to a four-year-old – the world’s biggest cliff. Surely, we were all about to die, but that wee crawler always made it to the paddock below the house and always made it back up, too. Wonderful.
I can still hear the metal tracks clanking and clicking and the little engine grunting and willing itself back up the earth bank. Not to mention Old Mate chuckling away as I clung to the tub of the thing and waited to die. Which, of course, didn’t happen. So, can we go again?
Being as young as I was, I had no idea what make or model this fabulous machine was, so I recently googled it and I reckon it was probably a Ransomes MG (Motor Garden).
And looking at the pictures that popped up, I can see it used a single-cylinder, air-cooled engine mounted at the front. Which kind of gels with my memory (knowing now what a big single sounds like). It’s also incredibly small, making me wonder how two people could have fitted in it (it didn’t hurt that my dad’s mate was known to all as Tiny).
Anyway, another of my sharpest memories is from many decades later when I happened to be in the USA on a job.
With a free day in Las Vegas (and no desire to even set foot in a casino) we managed to find a better alternative. This was the brainchild of an ex-pat Kiwi who’d been living and working in Vegas about the time of the last really big financial crash (2008, I think). Anyway, this bloke saw what was happening to the construction industry and started buying up all the unwanted excavators and bulldozers and other big heavy stuff that nobody could afford to keep.
But this fella’s master stroke was to then buy an abandoned mini-golf course which he then took to with one of this bulldozers and levelled it.
The idea then was that you could come along to the site, not far off the Vegas strip, pay your money and play for an hour in a digger or dozer or whatever to you wanted. This led to the fulfilment of many dreams, mine included. In fact, I struggle to remember a more satisfying 60 minutes as I dug holes, filled them, and learned how to use a 20-tonne excavator to place a basketball inside a car tyre without destroying either.
And don’t be thinking you couldn’t go at it full tilt. Despite the USA’s famous personal litigation track record, I was encouraged to really find out what a digger could do. And that included spinning it on its pivot fast enough to make me dizzy, and then placing the bucket on the ground and lifting the front of the tracks until I was pretty certain the whole thing was going to fall over on to its back. Which, of course, didn’t happen. So, can we do it again?
Anyway, ever since then, I’ve had a jones for an excavator, and the bigger the better. Unfortunately, The Speaker remains unconvinced that such a thing is necessary for a quarter-acre block. Bugger.
Anyway, one of the things my late father-in-law was fond of was farm machinery. And lurking up on the farm is a big collection of such stuff, including this thing, a Caterpillar 22. Last time I was up there, we managed to drag it out of its shed and fire it up for a bit of fun. Hand-cranking the thing was not exactly easy (I made my brother-in-law – Mr Expendable – do the cranking) but once it (the Caterpillar) coughed and barked a couple of times, it fired up and idled nice and smooth despite not having been started in decades. Gotta love that industrial engineering, yeah?
The 22, meanwhile, is a mid-30s unit (they were built from 1934 to 39) and I have no idea how this one found its way to a wheat-and-sheep farm in the Riverina sometime in – I’m guessing – the 1960s.
Technically, the thing uses a push-rod petrol engine (there was a diesel available, too) measuring 4.1 litres from four cylinders thanks to a four-inch bore and a five-inch stroke. As such – as you might imagine – it’s a grunter of a thing with a three-speed gearbox enough to give it a full range of working velocities, even though it’s flat out at 950rpm. It’s liquid-cooled and the whole shebang weighs in at just under three tonnes. Throw in the tracks and that kerb mass, and you can see why traction isn’t really a problem.
Driving it is a pretty gothic experience, with a hand throttle, the ability to take off in top gear and both steering clutches and steering brakes. Fine-tuning of your trajectory is via the fiddle brakes with their hand levers, while hauling in the left or right steering clutch will see the thing turn in its own length (with predictable results for the landscape directly under you).
Good fun and, for a kid from the bush like me, a huge nostalgia trip. Which is why we mess about with old stuff in the first place, right?