Opel Speedster and Other Mid Engines

I've been driving on a simulator via my Xbox 360 using the Forza Motorsport 4 game and a wireless wheel. No pedals or paddleshifter, unfortunately, so its not as pure a driving experience as I'd like, but it was cheap. Anyway, I beat the game days ago and I've been fiddling around buying cars and driving them. Found a very good one. The Opel Speedster Turbo is one of those cars which is mid-engine and actually means it. In the game, most mid-engine cars are too powerful and badly balanced so they try to kill you as you come out of the Apex of a turn. If you performance drive, this is where your Ass saves your life, because your ass feels an uncomfortable tickle through the car seat if the back wheels start to get loose as you accelerate out of a turn. This causes you to let off the throttle and then either get used to it or buy some better and stickier tires. Yokohamas sold well in Beemer country for this reason.

Now, in a rear wheel drive car you're mostly front engine cars, but the rear engine ones like Porsche tend to be much nicer, much faster, and go wrong backwards which sends your Porsche into a ditch or wall or tree. You don't always see what kills you in a Porsche since you're usually facing the wrong way with this oddly terrified expression on  your face. Ahem.

Mid Engine cars tend to be overpowered and very carefully balanced. The Noble M400, which I like a lot, and the M600 which Clarkson likes more and costs quite a lot more, is just a faster version of the Lotus Elise, basically, with a bigger engine and built in a shed in Suffolk or something like that. Just imagine Clarkson saying it.

Proper mid-engine cars keep the weight between the wheels and the power near the driving wheels such that gravity is helping the power get to the road, rather that acceleration lifting those wheels off as the weight shifts back onto the rear, as you see with Front engine and front wheel drive cars. Lots of wheel spin from cold starts. The good Mid-engine cars are:

• Lotus Elise (famously good), Exige, and Evora (mad)
• Noble M400 (good) and M600 (mad)
• Toyota MR2 (underpowered)
• Porsche Cayenne and Boxster
• Any Lamborghini (mad)
• Many Ferraris (civilized) except F430 (mad)
• Opel Speedster (rebadged Lotus Elise Turbo)
• Vauxhall VX220 (rebadged Lotus Elise Turbo)
• Pagani (all mad)
• McLaren MP4-12C (mad)

and quite a few others like them. I will point out here that the Lotus Elise got rebadged into the Vauxhall VX220 and the Opel as well. There are only slight differences between them. The trick with a midengine is these cars can't be upgraded much because it screws up their power balance and makes them try to kill you. The Pagani and Lamborghinis are famous for this. Cars where you can't put your foot down without suddenly breaking the tires loose from the pavement aren't fun to drive, even in a game where you can hit a button to undo the last 2 seconds of terrible crash. Some cars are so mad you don't realize you're about to die for 5-8 seconds so you have to backup several times to get far enough to have the tires properly contacting the pavement again. In the real world, you wreck and probably die.

I'd driven the Lotus Elise in Forza 3 and found it to be a car that keeps trying to murder you. Same with the Vauxhall VX220, which is odd since both are supposed to be the same car, only the Vauxhall has a turbo. So far, the ONLY mid engine I've really liked that isn't a mad dog is the Opel, since it takes a lot of bad driving before it tries to kill you.

I will say that the Ferraris are surprisingly civilized, as if their creators valued repeat customers. The Ferrari V12 has a wonderful sound revving with the turbo charger spitting and flames shooting out. The Opel is a bit more of a BURR sound with pops from the turbo, something I'm finding as a more civilized version of the Zonda. And the Opel corners the best of any Class C car I've tried.

The other surprise I've found is an all wheel drive Volvo S60. Who knew that would be fun? With some weight stripped out, and a few tweaks to the power via sport air filter and upgraded cooling and slightly increased turbos, its actually very quick and sounds nicer than the Subaru does. It also has the power to pass other cars on the straightaways. And that's very nice.

It's a little mad, as a race car should be, and would probably kill a person who drove it seriously, since I've noticed in the game that when an all wheel drive car breaks loose, you can't regain control. All wheel drive cars become angry ballistic bears that crash into the nearest upright solid object. The weight is just too fatal and the tires can't be spun back into grip again. Perhaps Subaru drivers could comment on this.

Front Wheel Drive cars are very good about letting you dig the ass back into alignment by using "More Powahh!" and lots of rubber smoking on the pavement, at least in the game, but I couldn't say in real life. I don't drive cars quite so dangerously, thus I remain alive.

Any comments?