5 Reasons Why Lightweight Special Road Cars Are Pointless

All those man hours spent by engineers trying to whittle down weight in everything from wing mirrors to seat backs can all be rendered useless because the owner can’t stay away from Burger King for more than a few hours. Shaving weight by a few grammes here and there makes sense when you’re dropping a lean professional racing driver behind the wheel, but when your driver weighs as much as two Lewis Hamiltons it all starts to feel a bit pointless.

2. Someone riding shotgun will unbalance everything

Dedication to weight savings - and the distribution of the weight that’s left - can easily be undone in a road car by the simple introduction of an extra passenger. Some manufacturers build into their weight distribution that a single driver will be in the car. Others make allowances for a passenger to get yourself an even weight distribution. Either way, that means that to get the optimum out of your car you either have to enjoy going solo all the time, or make sure you have a hell of a lot of friends on standby.

3. You can never carry anything with you

I’m one of those people who has to have a clean car, inside and out, at all times. Even so, there are often times where I have assorted things lying around, and that soon adds up. Whether it’s gym kit in the boot, bags of shopping, or maps in your glovebox, every single unnecessary thing in a lightweight special is a middle finger to the engineers who built it.

4. Speccing luxuries is unacceptable

As much as I’m all about the driving experience, anyone who’s spent time driving a pure performance car knows the novelty can wear off pretty quickly on a long journey. So unless your lightweight special is purely for track days, you’re probably going to want to tick a few boxes for things like air conditioning and a stereo. And many people do, attracting ire from keyboard warriors. The thing is, as much as I can totally relate to why people go for these luxuries, I’m with the keyboard warriors on this one.

Let’s take the Renaultsport Megane 275 Trophy R. That stunning hot hatch is one of the most sublime cars I’ve ever had the pleasure of chucking around my favourite back roads. Unfortunately, after many motorway miles in one, my left ear was in serious pain on account of there being almost nothing behind me to protect from road noise. But you put up with all that rubbish, and the lack of stereo, and the fact you’ll be boiling your bits off in hot weather because of the purity of the experience. Otherwise just get a 275 with the trick Ohlins dampers and be done with it. You’re not impressing anyone with your red wheels and tacky stickers.

The way it tends to work is that a manufacturer releases a car, builds a load of hype about it, then starts coming out with special editions to keep people interested. Supercar manufacturers such as Lamborghini are particularly guilty of this particular practice, which involves taking the original car and removing many things, and then they charge you more for the pleasure! The Aventador SV above costs £315,000, which is over £50k more than a standard Aventador. Sure, you get some more aero and extra power, but everywhere else stuff has been removed, so where’s the £50k going? Labour?

It’s all a massive marketing con, and if you buy into it you’re probably getting laughed at by bean counters in Italy. Spend your days at the track? Then sure, buy up lightweight specials all day long, but if all you’re doing is cruising about in city centre traffic and occasionally going half throttle on a country lane, it’s just a waste of time and money!