A couple of weeks ago, I drove the new Mercedes-AMG A35. Very competent, very well made, a splendidly posh interior and very fast.
Its 2.0-litre turbocharged engine produces 306bhp, which is enough to propel the all-wheel-drive A35 from 0-62mph in less than five seconds. Soon Mercedes will follow this car up with a new A45 that is rumoured to have at least 400bhp. That’s 25% more power than the A35, but will it deliver 25% more fun? Of course it won’t. Not that the A35 is exactly fun to drive, it’s just extremely sure-footed and quick.
The horsepower race is completely out of control. A hatchback is warm if it has only 150bhp and a supercar with less than 600bhp, well, it isn’t a proper supercar, is it? It’s all marketing led: engineers know that it’s all nuts and that adding horsepower almost always means adding weight.
You simply don’t need lots of power to have fun, as anyone who has owned a Citroën 2CV will tell you. Or an old Mini Cooper S. In fact, there are plenty of cars that have no more than 100bhp that are a hoot. It’s a nice round figure, 100bhp. Running that number around in my head got me thinking about machines that have that little power but which are huge fun. Not just cars, but motorcycles and other transport devices. Aeroplanes, for example. A Piper Cub is a very basic machine that has as little as 65bhp but which is a joy to fly.
To prove the point, we’ve brought together a collection of wonderful machines, none of which has more than 100bhp – some less than half our maximum, in fact. Some are old and some are new and to counter my reputation as a Luddite, one is even electric. And just wait until you read about the performance of the Cassutt aeroplane that we’ve brought along…Smart Roadster Coupé Convertible
From £2500
OUR VERDICT
Mercedes-AMG A35
Mercedes-AMG A35 2018 review - hero front
A more convincing hot hatch than the old A45 AMG, if not as thrilling as the most focused hatches
My sister has never heard of Gordon Murray but she has one thing in common with him: they both own Smart Roadsters. They both love them, too, while acknowledging their shortcomings. The little Smart is almost the perfect sports car in miniature, probably as close to an Austin-Healey ‘frogeye’ Sprite as it’s possible to get in the 21st century. Murray, who owns the car in our photographs, is also a Sprite owner.
With only 80bhp from its three-cylinder turbocharged motor, the Smart comfortably qualifies for this group. Two versions of the Roadster were produced: the simple Roadster with its notch back and the Roadster Coupé convertible like Murray’s (and big sister’s). The latter is the heavier at 815kg but that’s still light and gives us a power-to-weight ratio of 98bhp per tonne.
What makes this car so much fun is its size. Not only does it mean that you can drive the Smart along country lanes at a rate that you wouldn’t dare maintain in a current Porsche 911 let alone a Ferrari, but it also gives the impression that you’re going far faster than you actually are. And that’s a hell of a benefit in 2019. The Smart’s Achilles heel, apart from possible water leaks, is its six-speed sequential gearbox. It is jerky and unsophisticated but, once you’ve got used to it, allows you to drive the car accordingly – at which point the fun overtakes the irritation. Driving the Lotus 6 requires a level of concentration that drivers brought up with today’s plethora of moment-saving driver assistance systems such as ABS and TCS would be unfamiliar with. The drum brakes behind those skinny 3.5in rims are not even hydraulic but operated by cables. The Ford gearbox is a three-speeder with no synchromesh on first. Over the years, many people have swapped their car’s original worm and roller steering for a more modern rack. Ours still has the former and is rather vague but, because everything about driving this car requires forethought and because it gives such an undiluted experience, it doesn’t matter.
