And the Purists Take Another Shot

An automotive purist is someone who feels driving should always be the way it was several decades ago. While an extreme purist will even scoff at power steering, there are some items that need to be part of today’s world, especially since there are now more cars on the road than ever before. Most purists simply groan at the developments with power that many manufacturers are making. They seem to think a naturally aspirated engine is the only way to go to really drive and most of the time they want this attached to a manual gearbox for their driving enjoyment.

To this crowds all I can say is, sorry. The advancements being made in vehicles now show us that not only do automatic transmissions make better choices because these trannys can shift smoother and at the right times better than we can, but the power plants have to continually be improved. Without the turbocharging, supercharging and now hybrid and electric power supercars would not be able to enjoy the massive horsepower numbers they currently have. We now see cars that can drive over 250 mph and have over 1,000 horsepower; that is no accident at all.

The evidence is strong that supercar manufacturers are not going to head backwards. Sure you will still see some of the old stuff arrive on new platforms such as the new Porsche 911 R with the manual only transmission choice, but more are headed the way of using assisted engines. The Geneva Motor Show made that perfectly clear to us with the large number of cars that offered high performance numbers by using hybrid or electric power to assist the engines which are now typically using turbocharging or supercharging, or in the case of Volvo both.

At Geneva we saw the Koenigsegg Regera which offers 1,500 horsepower from the hybrid powertrain, the Morgan electric 3-Wheeler, heard the announcement of McLaren to tell us of its commitment to building hybrids and even possibly an all-electric successor to the P1. At this show we also saw the Acura NSX hybrid which will be on sale soon and the Porsche Mission E electric sedan. This is not new for our supercar world as we have recently enjoyed the Porsche 918, the McLaren P1, the Ferrari LaFerrari, the BMW i8, and even the Tesla Model S which are all electric or hybrid supercars that pack in the power and make use of all the technology available to them.

Even though the addition of hybrid motors and battery packs should add weight that doesn’t translate to performance, these automakers are doing a fantastic job of putting the weight in the right places to assist the vehicles. The improvements in carbon-fiber and aluminum technology help to keep the weight down as well. It may be hard for the purists to hear it, but these new vehicles are here to stay and the technology shows no sign of slowing down at all. You can still have your naturally aspirated motor with a manual transmission, but don’t expect it to beat anything on the track anymore.