"This is going to revolutionise the way we think about sports cars, probably, maybe? Ok probably not" - Some valuable advice to all car makers: Power to weight to rubber ratio.

Fun drivers cars are becoming something of a rarity these days, unless of course you have an endless supply of fruit from you’re money tree – go buy a Pagani Huayra, please – but for most of us this is not the case. And fun, cheap, rear drive sports cars are becoming difficult to find, our beloved Commodores and Falcons - Australia’s definitive rear drive sports sedans are likely to go front or all wheel drive by 2017, BMW is about to begin producing front drive cars and isn’t giving us manual gearboxes in its most recent M cars, even AMG is set to go all wheel drive in the near future. Who called the fun police?

Now, before you call me an idiot I will acknowledge that the Toyobaru twins fit the job description perfectly, but besides these two I can’t think of much else. There is the mx-5 but a new one of those is pushing nearly $50k – almost double the asking price of a base model 86, and in terms of fun, even if Miranda Kerr was sitting in the passenger seat, the mx-5 is in no way shape or form twice the car as an 86, in fact I don’t think anything is twice the car as an 86 in terms of fun. Now don’t get me wrong, I love the mx-5, but the current generation has been eating too many burgers lately, with its metal folding roof and various other luxuries it’s just gotten too heavy, and it’s spoilt the driving experience. Hopefully the next-gen mx-5 will go back to basics. I thought I could help Mazda with this and so I have some valuable advice for the blokes in charge of the next-gen mx-5 – they wouldn’t have thought of this, probably. This vital information is the key to making a fun car.

This is going to revolutionise the way we think about sports cars, probably, maybe? Ok probably not, but hear me out. The key to a fun car besides the given, rear drive, manual gearbox combination rests upon the power to weight to rubber ratio. Now for some Raw Driving maths. The power to weight to rubber ratio is given by (power/weight)/rear tyre width. This data is normally distributed through a bell shaped curve - the Y axis is fun factor and X axis is the power to weight to rubber ratio - see bellow. You see its fine to have a fantastic or not so fantastic power to weight ratio figure, you don’t need millions of kilowatts of power to have fun. As long as you have the correct tyre widths for your specific power to weight ratio, then manageable and enjoyable sideways action can be had. For example, the Toyota 86; it doesn’t have a fantastic power to weight ratio – just 113kw per tonne, but it has relatively skinny tyres – 215 sections, hence its power to weight to rubber ratio can be calculated as 0.53, now this is a meaningless number at the moment. So, to put things into perspective lets take a 325kw HSV GTS – the typical Aussie muscle car – it’ll do 0-100kph in less than 5 seconds, and it’s a complete maniac when it comes to drifting, yet, its power to weight to rubber ratio is a modest 0.65.

To the left(Getting there): Toyota 86 In the center(Goldilocks zone): BMW M5, C63 Black, SLS AMG, To the right(scary zone): 650hp Ford Mustang  

After many hours of maths, and some energy drink which will probably kill my liver – the things I do - I have calculated the optimum power to weight to rubber ratio for putting a silly grin on the drivers face, probably. Its approximately 0.8. On the graph above X(power to weight to rubber ratio)=0.8 and Y(fun factor) =10. Some cars that fit this description include the C63 AMG Black Series, BMW M5, and SLS AMG. You'll have probably noticed that all the cars I've mentioned are German, this is because the Germans know how to make silly ridiculously fun cars, they've got the formula spot on. 

The problem is however, these are incredibly expensive cars. So, Mazda I put this to you, please build us a small affordable sports car with a power to weight to rubber ratio of 0.8, if this is too difficult 0.7 will do, a manual gearbox, and rear wheel drive, limited slip diff layout. Nissan, I hope you’re listening too, don’t go thinking you can take on the Toyota 86 with a front wheel drive sports car – everyone will laugh at you, because you cant, just give us a new Silvia.

So there we have it, problem solved. Let the onslaught of fun cars begin!