Automotive

ThomasM
[PuristS]
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Baffled and in a quandary...

I admit it - I've been stumped.

I started out in life a quant geek - reading, studying, memorizing, spewing stats like the most fervent acolyte repeating the scriptures in a fevered tongue...

horsepower...torque...0-60 times...quarter mile runs...lateral g's...lap times and slalom speeds...and the king of the stats, TOP SPEED.

My other lifelong passion being timepieces, I was eventually forced to consider the "softer" side of things - design, beauty, the undefinable yet very real "feel" that gives one satisfaction even as the timepiece might be +3 or -1 more than the technically superior chronometer adjusted by the most gifted regleur...

And then there are the intangible yet undeniably powerful considerations like brand prestige and image, of both the marque and the model, stoked by gifted wordsmiths and paid master manipulators. As a budding purist, I tried to be above it all, caring "only" about the substance, what can be measured, with scientific repeatability, and that which made sense. Yet I could never deny the subtle and not so subtle consideration of recognizability by fellow cognoscenti vs adulation and envy inducing iconicism among the masses: Rolex and Patek vs Dufour and Voutilainen...

The pendulum swung slowly, and each half cycle of the swing took years, even decades... in the past decade and a half, the pendulum has been mostly in this part of the cycle -

and this

...more craft and aesthetics and proportions and finish and "spirit" and less +5 -2...

more private pleasures and "secret knowing smiles from fellow aficionados serendipitously crossing paths" and less "hey, great Luminor!"  But...

Cars are different, and especially high performance sports cars and exotics... by their most basic definitions are performance oriented, which means measurable and measured stats...

Hence my recent dilemma -

How to textualize my feelings that seat time in this

excites me more than in this

even though there is no question the Murci is the superior performer in just about any rationally measurable way.

I've been stumped; how can an incredible engineering masterpiece, an achievement that without a doubt is a watershed landmark in performance and reliability and comfort, such as this -

 leave me less excited, with fewer daydreams and fantasy, than this, arguably older technology with measurably inferior stats?

Why was I underwhelmed by these -

yet I LOVED this -

I am careful to avoid any brainwashing or pre-conceptions that might taint my personal response to actual seat time. Afterall, others' point of view are just that - that of others. It could be due to differences of taste; skill levels; priorities. Even, maybe, bias or prejudice, sometimes influenced by external considerations...and dare I write it, pecuniary considerations...

So if I know I am going to get seat time where I can reach my own conclusions, I go out of my way to put myself in a media vacuum - I purposely avoid reading professional journos on the vehicles I am going to get seat time in.  I avoid reading the comments of others, old hand drivers, racers, and internet dreamers alike. No pre-conceptions except that which are unavoidable - intuitive biases induced by sensuous, wanton curves and aero sharp lines; marque reputations and model myths.

And so I remained stumped - how? why? Just didn't make sense. 

And then epiphany, in the form of two models from one maker, the perfect dichotomy between hard numbers and HOW those hard numbers are achieved -

vs

(image courtesy of Roadfly; sorry, I don't have any pictures of the specific vehicle I personally know very well.)

As I come to grips with the differences in style, delivery, and "feel" of the E63 vs CL65, the numbers be damned, I might finally be able to share my feelings about

(photo credit Lamborghini and Motorauthority)

vs

or

and it wasn't as if I didn't get a chance to take these cars past 2/10th...

TM

ps:

Sorry for the belly gazing rambling, I'm still trying to sort things out in my own head.

And apologies for the delay in many of these write ups, long long overdue.  Hopefully this helps explain some of the reasons why...