wider is better - sort of.
March 15th, 2006Q: Is it just me or have you noticed the new BMW 3 series’ proportions echo the MINI’s ‘bulldog stance’?
A: It’s not just you… BMW has always tried for short overhangs (the less mass is outside the wheelbase the lower the polar moment and the more responsive the car is to directional changes) but in recent years we’ve noticed they’ve been getting their handling prowess by widening the track.
Take for example the trouble they went through widening the E46 M3 vs. the standard E46, the way this 3 and 5 series are wider than the last. (The MINI’s stance – and its handling – stem from the fact that it is far shorter than average but as wide as other cars).
There is a downside to this, however… at some point the cars become too wide for comfort – the car is more difficult to thread through traffic or a narrow back road, not to mention park in spaces that seem to be getting narrower at the same time. People who have driven both wide and narrow bodied 911s comment that the narrower one looks less aggressive but can be driven more aggressively on public roads…
March 16th, 2006 at 9:58 am
[...] to BMW M-series and Porsche In an interesting comparison, the guys over at Car Counsel discuss why the Mini has such good handling, and why [...]