Why are car engines so gutless?
I have always wondered why car companies, with all their experience, expertise & resources, produce such overweight agricultural & gutless engines. The answer, when it came, was disappointingly banal.
Years ago I was studying for my Masters' Degree with some guys from Rover. In the bar one evening the question came up: I asked why it was that their 2 litre engine produced 100bhp, about the same as a motorcycle engine of 1/3 that capacity.
And their answer was, (unsurprisingly in hindsight), that it comes down to money. In their estimation, about 1/2 price of a superbike (at the time around £9000) was the motor - i.e. £4500. For a mass-produced car, the budget was less than £1000.
Which, in a way, makes sense. Most car owners will spend most of their time in the car not exploiting the powertrain. Sat in a traffic jam, the comfort of the seat, the quality of the radio and the number of gadgets to fiddle with are much more important.
On reflection this is actually good engineering: give the customer what they need, not what you think they want. So I stopped being rude about car engines right there.
All of which backs Top Gear even further into the "comedy light entertainment" sector: if the bulk of car drivers are mostly interested in their car's comfort, the efforts of The Stig to get it round their track in the best possible time are just an amusing irrelevance.
Sorry Jeremy.
Years ago I was studying for my Masters' Degree with some guys from Rover. In the bar one evening the question came up: I asked why it was that their 2 litre engine produced 100bhp, about the same as a motorcycle engine of 1/3 that capacity.
And their answer was, (unsurprisingly in hindsight), that it comes down to money. In their estimation, about 1/2 price of a superbike (at the time around £9000) was the motor - i.e. £4500. For a mass-produced car, the budget was less than £1000.Which, in a way, makes sense. Most car owners will spend most of their time in the car not exploiting the powertrain. Sat in a traffic jam, the comfort of the seat, the quality of the radio and the number of gadgets to fiddle with are much more important.
On reflection this is actually good engineering: give the customer what they need, not what you think they want. So I stopped being rude about car engines right there.
All of which backs Top Gear even further into the "comedy light entertainment" sector: if the bulk of car drivers are mostly interested in their car's comfort, the efforts of The Stig to get it round their track in the best possible time are just an amusing irrelevance.
Sorry Jeremy.
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