If you're a fan of engineering, it probably won't have escaped your notice that today marks the tenth anniversary of the death of supersonic commercial transport. Yup, it's ten years since British Airways retired Concorde from service.
Now I know that, strictly speaking this is a car site and that strictly speaking Concorde wasn't actually, or even nearly, a car. But bear with me as I think there's an important point about the motor industry to be made.
When Concorde's Rolls-Royce engines spooled down for the last time back in 2003, many people argued that the death of supersonic travel indicated that, in engineering terms, that we'd peaked. That for the first time in human history we were going backwards instead of forwards.
It's true. Today's aeroplanes are slower than the Concorde. Whichever way you cut it that has to be 'a bad thing'. Take a look at the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, the newest of the commercial airliners. In many ways it is a technical tour de force; it can carry more people than Concorde, it is more energy efficient than Concorde, it is, in short, a much more sensible, prudent proposition than Concorde. However, in pure engineering terms, Concorde was and remains a much more amazing piece of machinery despite being more than forty years older than the Boeing.
The thing is, what with the twin burning issues of cost and the environment, the bankers and the beardies simply will not allow the world's engineers to flex their creative muscles by building something better than Concorde. As such, they spend their time working on ways to make things more efficient and more cost effective.
It's the same story in the world of cars. Cars today are miles better than they were in 2003. Faster, safer, more reliable, more economical, quieter... the list goes on. However, just how much more impressive would cars be if the engineers had free reign to do what they wanted, without having to take issues like emissions, fuel economy and cost into account? In short, if the green issue and the recession were removed from the equation, how much more exciting would modern cars be?
McLaren doesn't share this view. Its new hypercar, the P1, is a hybrid and while our first impression was that McLaren was pandering to the green lobby, the Woking firm is adamant that the P1 is quicker because of its electric tech.
While this might be true in the case of the P1, I would argue that it can't be true across the board. Sure, the smaller, turbocharged engines fitted to modern cars are very impressive. But when it boils down to it surely what we all want are bigger, naturally-aspirated units?
So, what do you think? Has this modern obsession with cost and the environment harmed the development of the modern car or improved it? In short, when it comes to cars, have we had our Concorde moment?
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