A recurring question has been rebounding off the inside of Kerbsider’s head recently: what car do you never ever see being driven slowly?
Initial thoughts were directed towards some of VAG’s hyper hatches – Golf Rs, Audis S3 and RS3. These seemed to fit the bill. Fast, easy to drive fast, turbocharged and blessed with indecent pace. But then, the thought was deconstructed – these cars have a huge appeal and have such a variety of drivers that not all of them are driven like crazy all of the time – time for a rethink.
Subaru Imprezas or Mitsubishi Evos? Both a rare sight on Britain’s roads, and both have a far narrower demographic of drivers. Both are quick, exploitable, and they have a tendency to goad drivers into driving faster. But again, the thought was dispelled. Some Imprezas love to simply burble around slowly, and some Evos are far too valuable to rag around like a hooligan.
Pause for thought.
Audi RS6s? They are massively fast and capable, and their cult appeal attracts a certain type of driver. An RS6 has always been quite a binary, point and shoot kind of car. Potentially, this was the car? Hmmm. But an RS6 is an premium car – it would be bad form and irresponsible for the owners to drive them indecently all the time, they’re just too valuable. Also, some owners have families, and you can’t drive like an arse with your family onboard, right?
And then it came. A bolt out of the blue, a bolt as blue as the faded badge on the front and turbo piping under the vented bonnet.
The car that you never, ever, see being driven at anything less than ten tenths is the Ford Sierra Sapphire Cosworth.
It is literally impossible to try and recollect one being driven normally. Every memory of a Sapphire Cosworth is of one with its rear wheels sunk deep into the arches as the suspension squats, and its nose pointing into the air like the bow of a speedboat. The visual image is completed by a huge cloud of oily black smoke and dust and road grime being spun into a whirlwind by a huge gaping 6” bazooka of an exhaust.
Sierra Sapphire Cosworths travel everywhere at what seems to be Mach 3.
You can even bet right now, that there is one, riding on 18 inch AF Corse wheels, doing approximately 150MPH on a bypass somewhere in this green and verdant country.
It’s just a fact of life.
Kerbside 