Nothing, but nothing beats timing the car on the road to find if performance improvements are really that. 

Over the years I’ve made plenty of modifications that resulted in no gains. One of the first was to my Holden VL Turbo, which I owned when it was only a year or so old. I fitted a new aftermarket exhaust and found that the ‘before’ and ‘after’ times had not changed. That’s right: there was no performance gain.

More recently, when Frank the EF Falcon had his new cam fitted, on-road stopwatch testing again sorted fact from fiction. Despite feeling stronger, the stopwatch showed that the gains were trivial.

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When you were taught to drive I’d wager 10:1 that no-one ever said anything about left-foot braking. The left foot was for the clutch, or in an auto car, for bracing yourself when cornering. (The driving instructor never said anything about that either? Oh well.)

I first started left-foot braking about 15 years ago. After reading a story on RWD handling that described left-foot braking, I decided to have a go. The first thing that I found was that after years of accelerator operation, my right foot had developed a super sensitivity – but my left foot was used to only operating the clutch. Left foot braking therefore resulted in a crick in the neck, until I learnt some sensitivity with that foot as well!

The worth was proved when I found myself pedalling a loan car, one that handled like it was shod with 75 series rubber pumped up to 20 psi.  The auto car had chronic understeer, but – much to my surprise – I found that it could be largely cancelled-out with a dab or two of left foot braking.

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I’ve decided that there’s simply no connection between how much power a vehicle has and the enjoyment gained by driving it fast.

Perhaps that’s in part because I’ve never been much into straight-line drags but it’s also in response to changing mores regarding driving fast on public roads. These days, driving fast needs to be done only around corners.

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I have replaced Frank the EF Falcon with another car that will in turn be AutoSpeed’s new project car. Ebay auction for the Falcon is here. It’s an excellent car in its final, modified form.

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As we all know, successive models of the one car tend to get larger.

A Corolla is now bigger than the original Crown; the new-age Mini is vastly bigger than the original; the current VE Commodore is very much larger than the first VB model.

Bigger is apparently better, until the size has grown so much that there’s a created place for a new, smaller model – like in the Corolla’s case, the Echo and then the Yaris. (Or in the Honda Civic’s case, the Jazz – there are many examples of the phenomenon.)

But the Holden Commodore has proved rather problematic. The newer, smaller models designed to slot in where the Commodore once was have not been very successful – the Vectra being the expensive case in point. So now we have the much cheaper Epica, which in terms of cars like the original sized VB-VL model Commodores, is actually large indeed. (But despite its size, it’s still smaller than the current VE Commodore…)

So what does it take for a long-time Commodore owner to finally jump ship? You know, the older person who has driven Commodore models continuously since their 1978 release? (For Commodores and Falcons, it wouldn’t surprise me if people in the ‘have-always-driven-them’ category make up half of the current private buyers.)

Do these people just religiously follow the upgrading in size, the upgrading in power, and the upgrading in weight? Or at some point, perhaps now with children having left the nest, do they say to themselves that the new iteration of the model simply doesn’t suit, and it’s time to get a car that isn’t smaller than their current model – it just isn’t yet again bigger. To step out of a VZ Commodore, not into a VE but into an Epica, for example.

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Perhaps driving self-evaluation is like social class.

How? Well, whenever surveys are taken that asks people to list what social class they belong to (ie lower, middle or upper), the vast majority of people put themselves into the category of ‘middle’. And the interesting thing: there’s no correlation between a self-belief in belonging to a middle class and income. People others might call impoverished still think they belong to the middle class; many of those anyone else would call wealthy also think they belong to a middle class.

In the same way, an awful lot of people believe themselves to be good drivers. Or at least, well above average.

In fact, you need only read web discussion groups to see people, either explicitly or implicitly, boasting about their incredible prowess. Slippery roads, powerful engines and rear wheel drive without traction control on public roads? Ahhh, that’s just fun. Cars that are twitchy and unforgiving at the limit? That’s why you need real drivers, not these pathetic attempts who prefer front wheel drive and are good for driving only shopping trolleys.

Over the years I have ridden with quite a few excellent drivers, including former Australian open wheel and rally champions. I have also ridden with drivers who are very good completely away from motorsport: one in particular who was always, in my opinion, extremely unlikely to have a crash in an urban environment as he was always so very watchful.

But there’s one thing about good drivers that is universal. Firstly, they never ever say that they are good drivers. Why? Because they’re always so well aware of their deficiencies. Secondly, they want in their cars predictability, consistency and communication. Someone who finds a challenging car fantastic fun in difficult conditions, and who tells everyone about it, is very likely just a wanker.

I think that it’s very important when evaluating your own driving that:

1) You never denigrate those who confess to being less than excellent in their driving skills. Instead, this self-analysis is to be applauded.

2) You constantly evaluate your own driving standard – taking the role of a make-believe critical passenger, if you like.

3) If you ever get a chance to, go for a drive with a really brilliant driver. It’s a reality check second to none.

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Having the throttle jam fully open is a pretty exciting idea. And an even more exciting reality.

I’ve had the throttle jam fully open twice in my driving career.  Once it was in city traffic, in second gear.  I’d just had the throttle body-to-plenum rubber hose off, and when I’d replaced it I hadn’t orientated the hose clamps the right way around.  The result was that when the throttle lever moved past the clamp screw it couldn’t get back: instant sustained Wide Open Throttle. 

After thinking “Shit!” I turned off the ignition key and then swapped lanes to the curb.

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The email was short and simple: Julian – From all your driving experience can you describe which (one) characteristic makes driving a pleasure?

I assume that the writer means which one characteristic of the car – and that’s a bloody good question.  

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All that I’ll say here has already been covered in AutoSpeed, but here it is again – this time with the facility to allow you to directly comment.

AutoSpeed is changing. The publication that we were 8 years ago, 5 years ago, even two years ago is not what we are today. Rather than being stuck in a time warp, we are responding to changes in society, changes in car technology and changes in the philosophy of staff members.

We started the latest raft of changes back in November last year – less chequebook hero feature cars, more background on car engineering, a hands-on project car (Frank the famous Falcon!) and more reader feedback.

Now we’ve dropped my Driving Emotion column in favour of this blog, a change that incidentally has boosted overall published content.

And reader contributions to the blog are just the beginning – expect to see in the near future the facility to comment on every single article. When the comments facility is up and running, we’ll drop the current Response reader feedback column. A weekly ‘letters to the editor’ forum is now outdated and with the facility to comment and give feedback on everything published, we see no need to retain it.

And the editorial content is further changing.

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