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Originally Posted by RPM90
My apologies. I have heard that old saying for a while now, and it does make sense. With motorcycles, in my experience, even more so.
With a nice handling bike and modest power, you get a sense of being more "comfortable" with applying power coming our of corners. And that translates to having fun as everything feels in control.
With high powered bikes, the power just feels like it's going to spit you off if you don't get that throttle just right. If you don't have the skill, this can be disconcerting, and the whole time you're stressed about the whole thing, and the fun is almost gone.
This is true in cars as well.
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Yeah, this makes sense. For me, personally, the extra power of a 135i would either be wasted on me or get me into trouble. The 128i is the most powerful car I've ever owned (everything before was sub-200 HP) and I actually don't think I'd enjoy a 300 HP car as much, because I wouldn't feel very confident in it. I'd like to start doing some car control clinics and HDPEs, and I think for a beginner the 128i is a better car to start with.
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Power, masking skill:
I understand your point on the "mask" thing, I just don't agree.
Perhaps this can appear to happen on a track where there are very few turns, so that the track is designed more for high speed, and thus a high powered car can blow the braking, and turns, yet make up for it by the track having mostly long, high speed straights. So, the track favors high power and high speed.
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This is exactly what I meant, a driver relying more on the power of his car than on good execution of technique. But, as you pointed out, I guess such a driver would still end up looking unskilled to anyone who knew what they were looking at.
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But, given equally capable drivers, do you really think the 128i can beat a 135i on track or the street?
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Oh, no, not even close.
My view on the 128i is that it is a fun, quick car. Depending on what you compare it to, it is even "fast." But by today's standards, it is not competetive. Nevertheless, such a car would have been quite impressive only 10 or so years ago, not that long really to anyone but a teenager. The march of progress and the automotive arms race has made huge HP numbers much more commonplace, but ask anyone still driving an old 2002 or 914 how much HP you really need to have a good time. I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with more, and for the power junkies out there the 135i is really the only logical choice - but I think a lot of people do overlook a balanced, poised and perfectly capable vehicle simply because, well, it's the "base model" and who wants one of those?