What makes a car fun to drive?

RX8 with an LS swap. Stupid fun. Makes me drive like an ass. It's almost like riding a high powered motorcycle. Gas it and you are there.

Klayfish wrote: Yes, fun to drive can come in many forms. But for me, it's a balance of feedback, responsiveness and power. Lots of power. Sorry, but I've fallen out of the "it's more fun to drive a slow car fast" camp. No, no it's not. Nothing fun about making the engine scream and having to bang out shifts just so the old lady in the tan Camry behind you doesn't run you over...or accelerating out of a corner and wondering if you left the emergency brake on. Not fun.

Right? Enough track time makes that little myth vanish. It should be "It's better to drive a slow car fast than to not drive at all, but it's way better to drive a fast car really fast in race traffic and really... it's better to ride a motorcycle badly than to drive anything well". I thing it was Confucius. Or Aristotle. Maybe not.

Oh... to answer the question (for me):

Telepathic steering but enough power and feedback to steer the car with my feet. The subtle nuances of using all the inputs to drive can't be watered down. It's the essence of the answer here.

Lightness. There is no substitute for flick-ability, short braking distance and fast acceleration. I'd rather a power to weight ratio with less weight in all cases.

RPMs. I want an NA screamer but a supercharger or turbo that "helps" is fine too. I don't need torque at 2K RPMs ... if I'm driving well I don't need anything less than 3rd gear of a typical 5 or 6 speed street car. Gimme 350hp+ at 6500 or 7200 or 9000 or 15k if we really want to get spendy. Give me a sequential manual if we are going big. If I don't need to drive around boost... I don't care how we get there.

Tactile feel. I like a cable throttle. A manual rack. A top loader transmission. A communicative chassis that I'm bolted directly to. Solid bushings and bearings. No play. The only rubber I want in my suspension is the tires. If the CPU can fake it, fine. But I want it raw and unfiltered.

Balance. Front, mid or rear engined... it's RWD with good weight distribution.

I think that's it. My perfect car is a Lotus Exige or cup with engine properties more like an S2000 and having 400 wheel horsepower and no added weight.

Rather than restate anything above (I've got an NA Miata, so you basically know where I fall in the whole power/handling discussion), I'll add two other determiners of "fun" for me.

Sound. I don't want to sound like a Borla commercial, but to me exhaust note is a huge part of the driving experience. Last year, a friend of mine and I swapped cars on one of the few decent "twisty roads" in SW Michigan. My car is a 94M, his a 95M Miata, so roughly equivalent. He couldn't believe "how much faster my car felt than his". Except that it isn't/wasn't. I was right behind him and keeping up in his car. Autocross results have shown us to be roughly equivalent in our driving skills. His car has a very quiet stock exhaust, mine, not so much. My son was riding with me in his car and summed it up well, "This car is too quiet, I can't tell what it's doing."

Maintenance/reliability. Driving a car waiting for something to break and empty your wallet just plain sucks.

This has been great for me and it helps me think about what fun to me is Thx