Power to the people: should every car be a sports car?

IT SOMETIMES surprises people just how much time is spent in airports as part of a job that basically was created just to spend time in small noisy sports cars. Having said that, it is also interesting how important sports cars and the experience of driving them has become to the mainstream automotive market.

This is not just because Porsche has put the world on notice with its hugely successful Macan models and the tagline “Every car should be a sports car,” but the influence of sports cars is quite gratifying and even a bit ironic to those of us that remember the industry practically declaring the genre dead a few decades ago.

Hot hatches and seriously sporty sedans made people question the need for small cars, with purposefully-twitchy suspensions and no luggage space, when makers could build a four-door and tweak the daylights out of it, yet still use the same platform for the grocery run/commuter buyer.

A recent airport-heavy trip started right after I spent a week with the current local model of one of the first SUVs we tested for C! Magazine. The current Volkswagen Touareg is just about as mainstream as you are going to get for the big European luxury SUV market. Straightforward conservative styling, nothing too flashy.

The model we ran was the new Sport variant, which has the rather love-it-or-hate-it accessory and features skewing that foregoes trivialities in order to allow a driver-tunable suspension.

As someone who once  firmly believed that electric windows and mirrors were uselessly weighty frivolity, the fact that the big SUV could be transformed into something that handled better than some large sedans of recent vintage combined with the ability to choose sporty or calm levels of throttle aggressiveness seemed to be just what the doctor would order.

Lexus RX in Portland

A long haul and a puddle jump and some serious airport time later found me in Portland, Oregon, to test the new Lexus RX. Lexus is of course the brand that takes Toyota solidity and brings it upscale, and it does it in such a way that is becoming truly frightening to brands that used to look at it askance.

The RX has been transforming from a big luxury ride to an increasingly edgy handler. It is a hugely successful model in many markets that has taken something pretty mainstream and conservative, and added hotness.

The new RX will give even more plushness and luxury than in the previous model, so recurring buyers will be quite happy. The crossover comes on strong, the spindle grill looking more aggressive than ever.

What made the big difference, though, was the handling. On fast highways, curvy roads and pebbled mountain tracks that we were not supposed to be on, the new RX was predictable and tight.

Every vehicle nowadays has traction control and other such computer-controlled systems that allow maximum safety in a myriad of conditions, but Lexus thinks upside-down here and bases its mathematical calculations not on how the wheels and corners are working as compared to each other and the ground, but on how they move against a theoretical point somewhere above the vehicle—in what they call as Skyhook technology.

They believe this allows more accuracy in a wider range of situations. Whatever the reason for the difference, we applaud the math. As buyers, it is often tough for us to move  from one model to the next because they seem very similar; indeed Lexus hits a very large market in all the right places.

You will not in any way think you are in a hot sedan, or even a Macan; you aren’t supposed to, anyway. The RX is meant, like most Lexus products are, to give you a little more smile for your hard-earned working-day money.

BMW 7s in Porto

Speaking of hot sedans and the supposed demise of sports cars, of course, brings us to BMW, whose boxy little cars were a key component in that happily-untrue prediction. I have always thought that BMWs with the purest DNA were the sport-focused cars with tightness of body and handling.

I was happy up to 5, but larger than that and I felt they were more luxury vehicle than true driving machine. With a mind-set that really bothered some people from Bavaria, BMWs to me were meant to be quick and fun and dynamic driving machines, not luxury cruisers. It is true, of course, that they are pretty much both; kudos to them for being able to pull that off.

A puddle jump, long haul and short haul brought me from the Pacific Northwest to the old city of Porto, Portugal, and a whole slew of new 7 Series sedans.

And while they were not the slicey 3ers, they could seriously keep you happily ensconced in luxury at the same time.

In Europe, such large fast sedans are in their element, and easily take the place of air travel for many places within the continent. Say what you want about first or business class, just don’t try and say it after getting out of the back of a long wheelbase 7 with a special stretch-out interior that allows you to put your feet up. The new 7 is pretty much the sprightliest yet, having dropped a good amount of weight with directions such as the use of Carbon Core technology in body structures.

Almost counterintuitively for large luxury cars, BMW has lessened the underhood insulation normally seen in large panels and replaced it with a more purposeful and precise application of insulation on or rear the engine itself. All these little bits of slices add to a lot, which means that the trend of smaller but harder-working engines can actually produce more forward speed because they are moving less weight and mass.

The new 7 brings handling and dynamic where luxury was taking over too much, and is now a far more interesting total package if you like yours sideways and screeching sometimes.

It seemed that except for weight, all they did was add more intelligent little accessories (entry lighting, flattering ambient lighting, equipment that operates with a wave). BMW Individual lets you pick and choose to your heart’s desire. This is the 7 that can keep you happy front seat or back.

Bentayga in Frankfurt

The last run allowed us to wave at everyone in Frankfurt for the big auto show, which we were supposed to attend but decided that over two weeks away from home was just too much.

The big news there was, well, big. Bentley brought out to the world the Bentayga, the luxury marque’s way to show people what a truly premium SUV should be right down to a clock with a tourbillon and its accompanying in-dash winder.

Just like all the vehicles we have previously mentioned, it benefited from the ability of modern technology and computing power, turning a behemoth into something that resembles a sports sedan. You couldn’t have produced any of these vehicles less than a generation ago.

Nowadays, you have suspensions that react to what the tires tell them they are doing with the road before you as a driver can feel it.

Sports car drivers and racecar drivers used to like it raw and unfiltered. They needed to feel the suspension working and the tarmac talking. Modern systems, though, are now so good that the car is more stable in all sorts of curves and undulations than it may ever have been with a race suspension (at least the bigger, heavier cars and SUVs), which means it actually ends up handling more predictably, and  which means you are more in control and potentially quicker.

Whether it is a function more of marketing and brand differentiation or the need to give discerning drivers more, or just the fact that technology now allows it, a lot more cars we can buy are now a lot more fun, more safe, too, generally more environmentally friendly—and unfortunately often more expensive as well.

But truly more fun. And what’s wrong with always having a little more fun at your fingertips. Perhaps, there is more truth to that line than we thought. Perhaps every car really should be a sports car.