There are many ways to measure automotive performance. With this in mind, let us consider the new Porsche Turbo S. It goes from zero to 100 km/h in 3.1 seconds. Top speed is nearly 330 km/h. And it has that dead-sexy sports car thing down cold.
Unfortunately, it falls down badly in the lumber-carrying and step-stool department.
I learned this the hard way during a test drive. The Turbo was parked in my garage, right beneath a Skil saw that was up on a high shelf – with our old Honda, I would have jumped up on the trunk and grabbed the saw.
Not this time. The Turbo S was a brand-new machine with a $200,000 price tag and a paint finish so perfect I could use it as a shaving mirror. It was jewellery on wheels. Standing on that costly German bodywork to reach a tool was out of the question – so as a stepladder, the Porsche was useless.
There is something to be said for a car that can carry out the multitudinous, often-ugly duties that make up the fabric of everyday existence – like picking up a load of pressure-treated fence posts, or transporting a hockey player who’s throwing up in the back seat after a bad meal and a raid on a hotel mini-bar. Or serving as a ladder.
That brings me to an automotive epiphany – the truest, most valuable form of performance is a car that lets you do things without worrying what will happen to the paint job, the upholstery, or even the body itself. In other words: you need a beater.
If you’re not familiar with the term, a beater is a car that vehicle buffs use to spare their good one. A beater gets driven in the winter. It goes on trips that involve construction materials, gravel roads and bad weather. Beaters are the Untouchables of the car world, permanently consigned to the lowest automotive caste of them all.
Some cars, like the Lada Niva and the Pontiac Firefly, are born into the beater class. Others cars sink into beater-dom, in a gradual slide from shining respectability to dented disrepute. Even the finest machine can end up as a beater – like the thrashed 1960s Aston Martin that someone used to leave parked in my neighbourhood, its paint worn through to the rusted metal, its folding sunroof gnawed by squirrels and raccoons.
Most beaters begin life as members of the car world’s middle orders – they are solid automotive citizens, engineered well enough to go the distance, but lacking the style and pedigree that makes them worth saving. I’ve owned a number of them. The latest is our 2002 Honda Accord sedan, which has done yeoman duty for our family since 2007.
Both kids learned to drive with the Accord (I’ll spare you the details), and it has carried everything from two-by-fours to airplane parts to feline stool samples. A tragic accident involving a bulk container of olive oil left the trunk carpet with a massive stain that seems to expand each month. But even the trunk looks good compared to the bodywork, which has a vast collection of nasty, unexplained dents and rips that make me wonder if the Accord was used as a target for a hatchet-throwing session. (Not that I really want to know.)
Not caring is the beater’s greatest gift. Back in the 1980s, I had a friend who decided to buy a brand-new BMW 3-Series. He spent a small fortune modifying it with aftermarket suspension, a ported cylinder head and a hand-rubbed lacquer paint job. He loved it. But only for about six weeks. Then the heartache began. A rock flew off a truck on the highway and dinged the BMW’s perfectly polished hood. The trick front spoiler got cracked by a curb.
