2007.02.11 Porsche Prating 1: Lotus vs Porsche
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Where was I? Oh, yes...
While this seems to be a foregone conclusion, and that my opinion of a comparison between a Lotus Elise and a Porsche Carrera 4S is obvious, there is more to be said about it. Because, honestly, it was a strange experience to have. But, I'm getting ahead of myself.
Long ago, when I was contemplating the Next Steed, the obvious option was a BMW M3. However, I learned that while the M3 was mighty in terms of performance it did not have the purest of sports car feel. An acquaintance that went from a C5 Corvette to an E46 M3 said that he missed being able to wring out the last 10% of performance out of his car, and that near the edge the M3 was a little numb and behaved mostly like a suped-up sedan. This aligned well with my own impressions of my beloved E36 328iS. Driving purist that I am, that consideration affected me greatly, and I decided that the primary consideration for my Next Steed was going to be something I call Stupid Grin Driving Glee Factor™.
NOTE: If you need me to explain what Stupid Grin Driving Glee Factor™ is, just stop reading now and never bother browsing the site again. Honestly, it's a waste of your time.
Consequently, my ambitions realigned to suit. The frontrunners through this process have been the Acura NSX, the Lotus Elise, and the Porsche Carrera. There were others that were considered as well, but eventually fell by the wayside:
- Honda S2000 · didn't want a convertible, and wanted a wider power band
- Nissan 350Z · poor visibility and materials, with more style than substance
- Mercedes SLK 350 · just not enough performance for the price
- BMW Z4 M-coupé · grimaces to grins ratio was too high
So why wasn't this a three-way test, to include the long-considered Acura NSX? The first and most important reason was simply that I couldn't find one worth considering. All the cars that I could afford were either too far away or were too old. I do regret not having a chance to see how I fit physically and functionally in an NSX. My consolation is that I have a hard time believing that it would have sufficiently superior aptitude compared to the Lotus or Porsche to overcome their other advantages.
Which brings us to the situation at hand. For philosophical reasons both aesthetic and engineering I was primarily interested in the Porsche. And, unfortunately, the dealer knew this when I arranged to drive for 3 hours to Bellevue to look at these cars. So when we arrived he had the Porsche already out and ready for inspection and test drive.
My pulse still gets all thready and happy thinking about the first view of the Porsche. It's just shaped exactly right to trigger all my dopamine receptors, and I'm sure that having my pupils dilate so wide helped me to see its alluring blackness.
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When the dealer, David Khazai, started the Porsche up for us we were standing behind it and got a view of the twin exhaust pipes as they snorted out puffs of vapour followed by a menacing growl. S and I turned and looked at each other with matching expressions of, "Oh, yeah, BABY."
What really proved Mr. Khazai's dedication to this particular sale, though, is that he insisted in riding in the back seat for the test drive so that S could come along. Now, if you are at all familiar with the dimensions of the tiny and merely vestigial cushions back there, you might quite reasonably doubt this claim. Fortunately, we have photographic evidence.
My very first impression of the Porsche was how eager it felt, while simultaneously being well-restrained. We burbled happily through some light traffic to the freeway on-ramp, and I eased it out to the fast lane. Then I dropped down into third gear and prodded the throttle as bravely as I could dare. The raspy scream that came from the engine said exactly what needed to be said with an exotic mixture of exultation and terrorization. You really could feel those three hundred and twenty horses ushering us towards insanity.
The best part, though, was when I was guided to an off-ramp with a 180° bend, and instructed to go quickly. This was it, the raison d'être for any sports car under my dominion. I entered the constant-radius corner at a speed slightly below what I might attempt it in Grendel, which was still pretty fast - I could sense S and the salesman tensing up. It was immediately clear that this lateral acceleration was nowhere near the Porsche's limit, so I accelerated gradually to the apex. This was a speed at which I am not sure Grendel would have lost it, but it definitely would have been interesting. In the Porsche, it was still stable as a rock. With only 90° left in the corner and a big, wide run-out due to an empty merging lane, I pushed much harder to see if I could get a better feel of what the Porsche might be capable of. With that much power being inexpertly shunted to the ground, I could feel the car squirming and becoming more touchy, but it communicated it to me so well that I could easily compensate such that I rocketed out of the corner confidently. Grendel would definitely have waggled his ass and engaged some stability control damping there. With traffic looming ahead I eased the throttle and wound down - S and the salesman let out simultaneous explosive sighs of relief.
I was very impressed. With the car, that is, because it clearly demonstrated that its limits are considerably higher than my own. Its limit of ability was still unplumbed (and, to be honest, it's still largely unknown even two weeks later). We leisurely got back on the freeway for the return direction, and the salesman asked me what I thought of it. I replied including an oh-so-subtle code phrase, "I think I love it." Earlier, I had told S that I wasn't going to spend this much money unless I fell in love with the car. Now she knew that the day was mostly just a matter of playing and haggling over price. The car was exactly what I was hoping for and dreaming of.
But this story isn't over, because there's the Lotus twist still.
A little bit later, it was time to give the Lotus a try. While I was pretty much convinced to buy the Porsche before I even got in the Lotus, there was still a bright spark of doubt in the bottom of my brainpan. The Porsche had ranked a clear 9.5 out of 10 for Stupid Grin Driving Glee Factor™, but maybe, just maybe, the raucous little Brit might earn more gleeful grins. If anything in my price range could, it would be the Lotus. And I'd be damned if I settled for anything less than the absolute maximum Stupid Grin Driving Glee Factor™ I could find.
The salesman wasn't making much of the Lotus, much preferring to sell me the Porsche. He referred to it as "a mere toy" and assuring me that the Porsche was a better car. So be it, but that wasn't the point. It sat there, low and defiant of anything the dealer or anybody else could disparage about it. I admired it for that.
And, in the interest of full disclosure, the Lotus embodied ideally a crazy untamed facet of my psyche that never wants to deign any concession of comfort or practicality for the sake of pure driving experience. It was that very facet that saved my self-esteem during wild lonely rides late at night in my teens when all my peers and docents would have convinced me of my lowliness. For that sake, to honour my own joy's salvation, I was willing to give the Lotus real consideration.
If you haven't seen a Lotus Elise up close, believe people when they say it's small. Still, no amount of external observation really prepares anyone for how incredibly small it is on the inside. The only real way in for someone of my height is to aim yourself at the seat across the doorsill/armrest and fall into it ass-first while curled up into a little ball to avoid hitting your head on the roof line. The dealer and I tumbled in at the same time, bouncing off each other, for which he apologized unnecessarily. Simply, if there are two adults in the car, both of them are going to get jostled by the ingress.
Once inside, though, the car is marvelously arranged for driving - even someone my height. In fact, with my head near the roof (with just enough clearance that there was no issue) I still felt like I had barely sufficient visibility. Worlds better than the BMW Z4 M-coupé, but really nowhere near as good as the Porsche. However, the placement of the controls were more intense-driving ideal than any other car I've been in: perfect steering position, with the shift lever exactly where it should be. If I were personally designing a sports car cockpit, it would be exactly the same fundamental layout as the Elise. Except with the Porsche seats.
Launching there was a minor flub right off the bat. I couldn't find first, and instead found myself starting in third. It's a testament to the tractability of the car that it had little difficulty pulling away in third, but it wasn't exactly snappy and it didn't bode well. Once up to operational speed, the feather-light aspect of the car immediately made a big stupid grin spread across my face. It was ridiculously entertaining. We romped out onto the freeway, but I had to quickly reign in the Lotus because there was now a police speed trap deployed. That was fine, though, because I was not particularly concerned that the Lotus might not be fast enough. Heading once again into the 180° off-ramp corner, though, is where the drama really started.
To initiate the corner, I dove in starting at the speed I negotiated the apex with the Porsche. It wasn't fast enough, and I could tell that easily. So I went faster. A lot faster. The little insane part of me that loved this car felt like it knew exactly what the Lotus could do, and I think it was right. Through the smooth apex of the corner, I strongly suspected that it could out-corner the Porsche. That is, it could until I rumbled across a seam. I remembered feeling that exact same seam in the Porsche, except the Porsche had so much rubber sticking to the rest of the road that it didn't give a damn. The Lotus, on the other hand, used that seam as an excuse to slither half a meter wider around the corner. And the little insane said, "Oh, by the way, we could have totally lost it right there and died. PRETTY COOL, HUH?!" I was giggling happily. The salesman was not.
On the return leg, I used the Lotus' small stature to slink through gaps between cars Grendel would never have considered and navigated back to the slow traffic. It was there that I finally found first gear. It required insistence, and a wince-inducing clunk, but I found it. It also just happened that I found myself beside a Ducati at a stop light. And he was looking at me, spiking his throttle. OH, WHAT THE HELL. After a dissonant set of howling screams the Ducati beat me by a hair, but the Lotus put the beat down on my neck muscles. And my cackling was clearly disturbing the salesman.
Stopping the Lotus, I felt a heavy weight on my heart. And, as I had to roll and flop and crawl to get out of the Lotus, I tried to drop that weight and make it look like an accident. Standing finally and regarding the Lotus, I found myself doing mental-emotional arithmetic, slowly and deliberately. When I was a kid, fantasizing about having a Ferrari, the power-to-weight ratio and control and simply joy of driving was exactly like what the Lotus provided. Reaching down and looking at what I really felt, the Lotus had just about pulled it off. It felt like a 10/10 for Stupid Grin Driving Glee Factor™.
Except, it wasn't. When I let any other part of my brain contribute besides the insane spark, it was clear that the 10/10 rating was ephemeral and only applicable to rare and ideal circumstances, while the Porsche was all fantastic all the time. So I found myself betraying the insane spark, and giving the Lotus a 1-point penalty for cumulative grimace aspects.
The Porsche won by benefit of consistency. Also through being more beautiful. And by being better engineered. And by virtue of being much, much less likely to kill me. And, in no small way, by incurring no grimaces whatsoever. Even the insane spark of my psyche has to admit that the Porsche works for it too. And it's not a psychological facet to hold grudges - it's too busy trying to kill me with fun.