Sometimes the slowest cars are the fastest
Photo Citröen
Try as he might Sudhir “Banzai” Matai just can’t shake a well-driven, but scruffy European hatchback.
Paddy Hopkirk carved his name into the annals of motorsport history by conquering one of the most difficult rallies of them all: Monte Carlo. But it seems this legendary pilot wasn’t the quickest driver over the stages that make up that historic event.
“There was one night before the 1963 Monte; we were on the Chamrousse stage north of Gap when we saw some brakes lights ahead. We’d been up and down there all day and we thought, ‘oh it’s the Germans or the Swedes’, so I chased and chased and when I eventually caught them at the bottom of the mountain it was Citroën 2CV with two nuns in it – must’ve left the vicar at the top of the mountain,” he told Hagerty.
Hopkirk is certainly not the only driver to be surprised by the speed of a humble hatchback on a bendy road, where years of local knowledge are more than a match for any amount of horsepower.
The vehicle in question is usually driven by someone one the mature side with barely a view over the steering wheel, yet try as you might, you will not shake it, as I found on my very first trip to Europe. Half a day into my first drive, there it was, looming large in my rear-view mirror: a scruffy little hatchback. The car was hanging onto my rear bumper as though I was towing it.
The driver was expertly carving his way through the twistiest tarmac with economical inputs for maximum pace. It was the middle of the week so he was probably on his way to work and I was being an obvious nuisance. I wasn’t hanging about, but the mountain pass we were tackling was completely unfamiliar to one of us.
It didn’t help that I was sitting on the ‘wrong’ side of the car shifting with my right hand and trying to place the car carefully with my less dominant left. At the first opportunity I slowed fractionally and he pulled alongside before disappearing down the road.
Photo SEAT
Over the years I encountered several more of these perfectly-piloted, slow-yet-speedy vehicles on numerous car launches on The Continent with the particular model making me feel as though I was a total novice usually corresponding with the country I was in. In Spain it would be a SEAT, in France a Renault Clio or Peugeot 206, in Germany a VW Polo. More often than not it was white in colour with steel wheels and the most basic trim.
Sometimes I’d be in something low slung with a mid-mounted motor, other times it was a front-engined coupe with RWD and an abundance of power, but try as I may, a power and grip advantage was no match for local knowledge and experience.
After years of being made to feel humble by these expert wheelmen and women I read Hopkirk’s comments about the nuns in the 2CV, and now I don’t feel so bad after all.