More cars should have fixed driving positions | Thank Frankel it's Friday | GRR
A couple of weeks ago I drove the new Ferrari Daytona SP3 and, thanks to the way these arrangements work, I can say nothing about that experience until next month. But actually, it was a car it reminded me of that motivated me to sit down and write this now. And it wasn’t even a Ferrari.
It wasn’t because the SP3 looked like this car, sounded like this car or drove like it either. They are utterly different machines in concept, execution and era except for in one tiny area. Their seats don’t move. That’s right: you can spend all day in an SP3 looking for a way to slide, recline, raise or tilt the driver’s seat and you will fail. The seat is rigidly bolted to the carbon fibre monocoque and isn’t going anywhere without the aid of a crowbar.
There is one lever you can tug, but it doesn’t move the seat; it slides the pedals. It makes so much sense: we are all very used to pulling the steering wheel in the best position for our height and driving style, so why not the pedals too? Let the car come to you, not vice-versa. The advantages? It helps optimise visibility if the glasshouse can be arranged around a fixed point and it can lower the driving position because the driver can sit in a recess in the tub that would not be possible if the seat had to slide. It’s simpler, saves weight and makes getting in and out far easier too. But in engineering terms the biggest gain is that it stabilises a significant amount of mass – namely you and your passenger – in one place. So you don’t have up to a couple of hundred kilos of person migrating the weight distribution fore and aft within the car.
Why, then, are sliding pedals not more common? I really don’t know but my guess is that it’s to do with regulations and cost, because it is almost always one, the other or both of those factors that deter car manufacturers from making the most of these apparent easy wins. A central driving position, like that of the McLaren F1 or Speedtail, is another such example.
So what is this other car? It is none other than the Maserati Bora, introduced alongside the Lamborghini Countach and Ferrari Berlinetta Boxer as one third of the original supercar trinity, back in 1971.
I was six at the time and even when Boras started turning up in magazine group tests a few years later when I was old enough to read and understand them, I never gave them much thought. Why would you when the Ferrari and Lambo were so much more dramatic and faster too?
It was not years but a period of time best measured in decades before I realised what a fool I’d been to have ignored it. By then I’d driven most of the front engine Maseratis of the ‘60s and ‘70s – cars like the Indy, Ghibli, Mexico and Khamsin – and while I’d liked some more than others, I’d not lost my heart to any of them. But then I drove a Bora. Oh my goodness.
It wasn’t just because its seat didn’t move, but I thought then as I think now how natural and right it felt to be snug against the rear firewall and then reversing the pedals back to meet my feet. Unlike the SP3, the Bora’s pedals were hydraulically powered and, unlike every other supercar of the era, its steering adjusted for both rake and reach. At once I felt at home.
It was a late car, with the larger 4.9-litre engine (a 4.7-litre had been available too, both related to the 450S race engine) and what was probably a pretty honest 324PS (239kW). With steel panels, the Bora wasn’t that light, but the motor had the torque to provide it with performance that was startling for the era by any standards other than those of the flagship products of rival Modenese manufacturers.
What I remember most is just how usable it felt. It rode beautifully on its elegant wishbone suspension and was quiet enough to only let the sound of V8 really intrude when you wanted it to. It even had a big boot.
Of course, I knew none of these things when I was a child, nor did I appreciate just how wonderful its Giugiaro styling was; it was so much more subtle than the obviously beautiful Boxer and shockingly overt Countach. But I can see it now: when I saw one parked with its rivals on the Cartier Lawn at last year’s Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard, of the three it was the one that drew my eye again and again.
I think the Bora must count among the most underrated of all supercars, forced when new into the shadow of the glamour twins from down the road from which it has never really emerged. But as a thing not just to look at or take to the pub, but to get in and really use, I expect it was the best of the bunch, and remains so until this day – sliding pedals and all.
Ferrari Daytona SP3 photography by Joe Harding.