► The art and science of new-car smell
► How quickly it wears off though…
► Our columnists’ sideways look
I’ve decided I don’t want to be a billionaire. Nah, not for me. Elon Musk can keep them all (the billions, I mean).
My thinking is this: familiarity with rare and expensive things spoils them. As a car journalist, I’m in the incredibly privileged position of getting to drive the cars that others only dream of, cars that are way beyond my means, and I’ve noticed something disturbing.
If I get to drive a Ferrari or a McLaren for a tantalising hour or two, they maintain their exotic, bewitching appeal. But if I drive something for longer – three or four days perhaps – it’s amazing how quickly you get used to all the noise and acceleration and the sports seats and leather interior, to the point where you almost forget what you’re driving.
Terrible, I know, but it’s not my fault – I’m human. As a species, we evolved with a particular skill for adapting – our ‘phenotypic plasticity’, as the scientists call it, allowed us to spread from the deserts of Africa to the frozen tundra of Siberia. We are exceptionally good at re-setting our baseline expectations about weather, food, environment, power output and trim level.
Driving a supercar, I’ve often thought about the people who are wealthy enough to have it all, who end up like a character from the TV show Succession, climbing aboard yet another helicopter like it’s an ordinary Toyota taxi. They must pop to the shops in a Ferrari with their senses dulled by the pedestrian routine of it all: ‘Oh, yawn, here we go, let’s fire up the old V12 again.’
And the few supercars that are designed to be extra convenient and usable – oh dear. The second-gen Honda NSX (RIP) was amazing, yes, but it was also so unbearably practical and usable. Honestly, after driving one for a week, you’d climb out, look back and only then – when you saw it from the outside – you’d think, ‘Wow! I’ve just been driving a mid-engined supercar!!.’
So imagine what it’s like driving a Porsche Cayenne. I was lucky enough to drive one of those for a week recently, the latest S model with a 4.0-litre turbo V8. Climbing out of my base-spec Renault Clio and into the huge, leather-trimmed interior was like boarding a private jet. All Porsches have a particular smell, rich and perfumed, like the lobby of a five-star boutique hotel. Mmmm. And the first time I accelerated, the soft burble of the V8 made me feel like I was driving a 468bhp jacuzzi.
The thrill, the excitement, the awe – there was no way it could last. A few days later I climbed back in again and my eyes ranged across the devastated interior. The door pockets were stuffed with old takeaway coffees and water bottles. An empty packet of crisps was folded in half and stuffed into the cupholder. There was an old banana skin in the centre cubbyhole. Charging cables sprawled everywhere, like something important had been ripped from the dashboard.
The problem is, the Cayenne may be a Porsche but it’s also very good at everyday family life. The cabin has more storage space than an Ikea showroom and the boot is gigantic. So one minute you’re running your hand over the boot floor, savouring the quality of that deep-pile carpet, next thing you’re throwing your muddy dog in the back and casually hoping it doesn’t feel car sick. It’s a car you can so easily take for granted and within a few days I’d assimilated everything the Porsche had to offer and re-set my baseline to Gold Star Premium SUV.
How do we stop this? Electric shocks through the steering wheel are the only way. Or a 6×4 colour print of the car you’re driving, Sellotaped to the dashboard.
Or… maybe the answer is to become more jaded. Maybe it’s the expectation that it’s going to be amazing that’s the problem, those initial hours when you feel like a kid in a sweet shop, sniffing the steering wheel and opening every pocket, flap and box. (Yes I’ve been known to smell a steering wheel).
As the actor Jim Carrey once said, ‘I hope everybody could get rich and famous and will have everything they ever dreamed of, so they will know that it’s not the answer.’ Jim Carrey is only worth an lowly $180 million. Now that much money, I could handle.