What we learn from specialized publications is that all cars have their flaws, no matter how expensive they are. So could there be such a thing as a perfect car? Autocar believes it so, with the British magazine going as far as creating renderings and specifying a driver’s ideal set of wheel. Editor-at-large Steve Sutcliffe’s vision of the perfect sports car goes like this: an open-top two-seater with a mid-engine layout, rear-wheel-drive, less than 1,000 kg (2,204 lbs) and with a price of £35,000 ($56,800).

“As the world of cars gets ever more complex and produces machines that are increasingly sophisticated in their design and engineering, there’s still a desire for something at the other end of the scale. A sports car that’s simple to understand and interact with. And, most of all, dead good fun to drive,” says Sutcliffe.

Digging further into the details, he thinks the British Sportscars 1, or BS1 for short (someone made a poor choice of letters here…), should offer the performance and driver appeal of cars that normally cost twice as much and offer a Le Mans type driving experience. Namely, there should be lots of torque, a paddle shift gearbox and no ESP. “It will look low, wide, mean and beautiful, and will be utterly irresistible to its intended audience,” Sutcliffe adds.

The BS1 would have a space frame chassis built from aluminum and steel, with body panels made from glass fiber-reinforced plastic and carbon fiber. The mid-mounted engine would be a VW 3.0-liter V6 turbodiesel engine tuned to produce 250 horsepower and 475 Nm (350 lb-ft) of torque. The sprint from 0 to 100 km/h (62 mph) shouldn’t take more than 4.5 seconds, while top speed should be 147 mph (236 km/h). Average fuel consumption would reach 4.7 liters/100 km (50 mpg US), with CO2 emissions rated at 199 g/km.

Jamie Corstorphine, the magazine’s Features Editor, said: “I’m loving the images and I’ll definitely be first in the queue if Sutcliffe’s blueprint reaches production, but he has his work cut out to meet his twin targets of 1000kg of kerb weight and a £35,000 price tag.”

Though commenting on the design of the BS1 would be subjective, we can’t help but wonder what a diesel engine is doing in the perfect driver’s car.

By Dan Mihalascu

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