The walkers, cyclists and various day-tripping guests of the Peak District shouldn’t have any bother listening to us coming.
It’s an early July day in the course of the working week (and, sure, this does depend as work, though I by no means stop to be amazed about that), so I’m not too sorry to interrupt their peace.
I’m, in spite of everything, solely taking advantage of the chance whereas I can. Soon sufficient, the vacationers can have nothing to detract from their leisure however electrical motor whine and cattle flatulence (be careful, Daisy: you are subsequent).
In entrance of us is a barely combined trio of vehicles that you just won’t have anticipated to seem collectively in the identical group take a look at. But since they have been chosen by destiny and happenstance, not by me, they’re what they’re. Specifically, they’re the final three front-engined, rear-wheel-drive, V8-powered sports activities vehicles left on sale within the UK.
From the late Fifties proper the best way by means of to the rise of the reasonably priced mid-engined sports activities automotive within the Nineties, this was the way it was completed.
Plonk a robust V8 engine longways within the entrance of your light-weight chassis, sending its drive to the axle on the again, after which work on the finer engineering particulars later.
It was a confirmed profitable recipe that produced sports activities vehicles as completely different because the AC Cobra, Chevrolet Corvette, TVR Griffith, Porsche 928, Jaguar XK and Aston Martin Vantage V8, together with a terrific many extra that you just would possibly loosely have described as reasonably priced of their day.
Today’s diverse band, amongst them a sporty luxurious GT, an ageing British sports activities automotive and a much-celebrated legend of American muscle, is what stays to symbolize one of the crucial fashionable mechanical layouts that the sports activities automotive market has ever identified.
A Ford Mustang GT can nonetheless be snaffled up for lower than £50,000. The Lexus LC500 has simply been taken off sale within the UK, though should you’re content material with a base mannequin, you would possibly simply safe one used for a whisker beneath £100,000.
And the Jaguar F-Type, additionally now retired, beforehand break up the distinction on worth between the opposite two, and nearly meets our qualification standards in as a lot because the mid-range P450 model has just one pushed axle.
So which of those three is the very best tribute to a basic mechanical recipe? Which must you seize, should you’re so inclined, and treasure for so long as the world will permit? And which is able to we miss essentially the most?
Engines
A V8 engine within the entrance of a useable, reasonably priced, highly effective sports activities automotive simply makes good sense when you consider it. Yes, they burn hydrocarbons – various hydrocarbons, clearly, and should subsequently be wiped from the face of the planet as rapidly as potential, in accordance with good outdated public opinion.