One-hit wonder

GTs may be surplus to requirements these days, but they still get under your skin like little else

- Richard Lane

Car journalism: it can't resist a good cliché. Among the top offenders is the notional ability of an assertive, long-snouted grand tourer to fire you to the Côte d'Azur 'in one hit'. One hit, you say? Blimey. It's up there with 'rifle bolt' shifts, 'alacrity' and the cursed 'dab of oppo'.

Cliché or not, the point here is that the talent your flash GT has for shrinking the geography between Blighty and the Mediterranean Sea is, objectively speaking, less relevant now than ever before. A TGV train can hit 357mph; flights cost pennies. Cars themselves have also evolved.

In 1930, the contrast in appetite for big miles between a Bentley Blower and a Ford Model T was gaping; by 1965, standards had improved but horsepower and leather still counted. The attritional hit of six hours in an Aston Martin DB6, with its streamlined body, Selectaride dampers and 325bhp straight six, was massively less than in a Hillman Imp. The DB6, we said at the time, was for those needing "to travel far and fast".

Today it's a different story. Even a 15-year old Volkswagen Golf TDI is considerably more relaxing than an oil-perfumed old Aston (which lacked even headrests). Up the ante to a new BMW 3 Series and you have a car so amply endowed with power and so serene at speed that it's a prodigious GT in its own right.

It makes you wonder: in 2024, do the machines made and marketed on the undeniable allure of golden-age continental escapades still offer something unique when asked to fulfill the role? Or have they gone the same way as the horse: a nice plaything but essentially redundant?