Driving Force

ENJOYING A GOOD DRIVE AIN’T AS EASY AS IT USED TO BE, BUT THIS QUEER QUINTET IS DETERMINED TO KEEP THE ENTHUSIAST FIRE BURNING.

- Dylan Campbell, Llouis Cordony, Trent Giunco, Scott Newman, & Chris Thompson

IF YOU’RE reading this, you, like us, are an endangered species. The walls are closing in on driving enthusiasts on every side, with every effort being made to thin our ranks. One of the leading causes of extinction is habitat destruction; countless roads around the country have had speed limits slashed from 100 to 80 or even 60km/h, making yesterday’s cautious motorist today’s miscreant.

Even worse, some manufacturers are hellbent on making drivers redundant altogether. The timeline remains unclear and the challenges are many, but like it or not, autonomous cars are coming, the process accelerated by the race to be first with this pioneering technology. They’ll save our lives, but they’ll also take our freedom. Thankfully, some car makers are still on the side of the enthusiast and that’s cause for celebration.

The five disparate cars gathered here are linked by a common goal: the desire to entertain the driver to the fullest extent. Market and segment positioning dictates each go about it a different way and over the coming pages you’ll read about these differing approaches. This is not a comparison test – though perhaps one car will achieve its goal more successfully than the others – but a chance to enjoy these machines while we still can on one of Victoria’s best driving roads, the hill climb to the Lake Mountain Alpine Resort.

Representing the elite end of town is the Porsche 911 GT3 Touring. Even amongst its driver-focused siblings, the Touring prioritises fun above all else. Essentially a 911R by another name, the Touring forgoes the conspicuous wings typical of the GT3, but retains the razor-sharp handling and screaming atmo engine. Oh, did we mention it only comes in manual?