Top Trumps
The old fast
As a child, Top Trumps wasn’t just my favourite game - it was my favourite textbook. I memorised every stat like my life depended on it. None more so than Top Cars. Pull the Ferrari 308 and you could see off all challengers: 160 mph, 0–60 in 6.1 seconds, 250+ hp, eight cylinders. It was the ultimate trump card. Today, it would be the Old Maid.
Five-hundred horsepower is now ordinary. “Ludicrous” is literally a drive mode in what used to be called a milk float. Holding a card for a car with less power than a 308 would feel like drawing the shortest straw. This must all be tremendous fun for today’s children - assuming they ever look up from their phones - but are these cars actually fast in any meaningful sense?
In later life I was fortunate enough to own a Ferrari. It made the 308 feel positively pedestrian, yet it rarely felt fast. Yes, it could annihilate most speed limits in under four seconds, and 180 mph on the autobahn kept the big Mercedes off your tail. But day to day it was simply a nice car to drive. The constant invitations to drag-race hot hatches piloted by youths quickly got old. And as I’ve said before, the supposed “social benefits” only worked if you batted for the other side - women, in my experience, are far more interested in dogs.
The relentless march of draconian speed limits and ubiquitous cameras means you’ll rarely, if ever, explore what today’s cars can do. At 20 mph they feel no quicker than my auntie’s Morris 1100. In fact, they often feel slower - like you’re barely moving. There is, I’ve found, far more joy in driving a slow car quickly than a fast car slowly.
Pitching Bertie through a roundabout at 25 mph, tyres squealing, is infinitely more exciting than 120 mph on a motorway (or 70mph backward through a hedge). Hustling an underpowered classic around a bend at 40 mph feels fast. In a modern car, merely touching the accelerator often triggers the onboard nanny with its chorus of bings and bongs. Where’s the fun in that?
James Hunt, the 1976 Formula 1 World Champion, knew this better than most. After a career spent in the fastest race and road cars of his era, he claimed the vehicle he enjoyed driving most was his Austin A35 van:
“I can put everything I learnt in motor racing into driving it round the Wandsworth one-way system on a wet Saturday night, blow off all the Ferraris, and nobody takes a blind bit of notice.”
That, in the end, is the secret. Real driving pleasure has never been about outright speed. It’s about using the car - whatever it is - to the full, somewhere you’re actually allowed to.