Photography by Michael Banovsky
The great thing about having fun is that there are so many different varieties of it. Within weeks, I found myself behind the wheel of both a $1,500 homebuilt CycleKart and a $340,000-ish McLaren 650S. Both hugely entertaining, in its own way. The McLaren is a spaceship in comparison, but…
Because this isn’t a high school sleepover, this isn’t a choice between the McLaren 650S and Dennis Thomas’ CycleKart. The McLaren wins, every time. But each thrills in a different way. In the McLaren, it was in the feeling of superiority over my surroundings. On-ramps, back roads, slow-moving traffic—I didn’t see a faster car all day. Faster drivers, definitely, but they were sadly mostly behind the wheel of overloaded Ford Econolines.
I’m confident I know what made the McLaren fast, but if had asked me to draw a schematic of how, say, the McLaren Proactive Chassis Control system works, you’d get an illustration of spaghetti.
The CycleKart, though, that was a much more childish sort of fun. I think I could feel the camber changing on the wheels as I hurtled through Thomas’ shop. I locked up the tire(!) under braking, and quickly learned how to induce understeer and oversteer on command.
There will be a full article on each car soon, but for now, I’m wondering: today, right now, which sort of fun would you rather have—and why?
