I’m not really sure that responding to a column from a British newspaper by a writer that I suspect may not be one most of our readers are familiar with is the best use of my time, but this is one of those occasions where I think I actually have a viable, real solution to the problem posed by the columnist. And it’s a fun solution that reflects some of the core values of this very website, so I feel sort of morally obligated to weigh in. So let’s get into it.
The column in question is this one, where Ms.Rumbelow not only laments about how slow driving is in the UK, but also waxes nostalgic for some kind of condiment that sounds like nostalgic wax, and explores how women are generally not called “losers.” There’s something for everybody in there.
Anyway, the part I’m interested in is the bit where she complains about how driving is too slow, which makes driving not cool anymore, according to her. From the column:
“For something to be sexy it has to risk death, at least in theory. This is why the slowdown is both an excellent idea and the biggest turn-off to cars since Alan Partridge’s driving gloves. These latest speeding cases reveal celebrities pottering about their domestic business, commuting, visiting their arthritic mothers, hardly the ever more desperate and fatal fantasies of the car adverts’ top speeds and mountain passes. Without the wind in one’s hair, Mr Toad, James Dean and Thelma and Louise may as well take the bus.”
Thelma and Louise take the bus! And other silliness…. pic.twitter.com/jpiU6QpWcL
— Helen Rumbelow (@HelenRumbelow) April 13, 2026
Okay, so the reason I’m so excited to respond is that, really, there has never been a more solvable problem in the entire history of motoring! Look what she’s complaining about: loss of risk of death, driving feels too slow, no wind in your hair. All of these can be solved, and solved incredibly well, with the application of something quintessentially British: a Bugeye Sprite.
Actually, it doesn’t even have a Bugeye Sprite; it could be a MkII sprite or an MGB or a Triumph Spitfire or an old classic Mini or an Austin-Healey 3000 or any number of old, tiny, low-powered classic British sports cars and roadsters.
You want to simultaneously risk death, feel the wind in your hair, and feel like you’re speeding without breaking any speed limit laws, all at once? Then, Helen, my Sister in Chrome, boy are you in luck. Any number of old British sports cars will do all of these things, and look fantastic doing it. The aforementioned Bugeye Sprite, for example, makes well under 50 hp but since you’re essentially in a tiny motorized bathtub about a smurf’s height off the road, even 32 mph feels like 112.
And danger? You want the sexy thrill of mortal peril? Oh, girl, are you in for a treat! Almost any modern SUV could run over a Sprite and crush it into something that would count as architecture in Flatland without the driver even spilling their matcha. And, unlike speeding in a modern car, the kind of danger that a tiny roadster like an MG provides is all inward-facing. That means yes, there’s danger, but it’s mostly just to the person driving, not the people around you who may have not expressed such a lust for peril. I absolutely believe in the right to put one’s self in danger while driving, just not anybody else. This is something I practice myself, and stand by its questionable joys.
There’s so very many good and affordable options that can solve this problem, completely. I get that people are bored with modern driving! I get that you may want to speed in your modern, hermetically-sealed Land Rover or Infiniti or whatever climate-controlled behemoth you guide through the streets!
Everything has so much power now that it’s impossible to not feel like you’re holding back, with that unpleasant paused-in-mid-urine-stream feeling that comes from never getting to push a throttle pedal down more than 1/8″. Of course it’s maddening!
But when you’re behind the wheel of a 1600-lb tiny car with all of 50 hp on tap, you’re going flat out everywhere you go! A trip to the long-term records storage facility suddenly becomes thrilling! You’ll show up at your podiatrist or ornithologist or orthodontist shaking from the excitement of merging onto the M5 or whatever they call the freeways over on that island.
Look, I get it. I hate being bored, I hate being bored behind the wheel. But I’m here to turn on some flickery Lucas Electric headlamps rather than curse your darkness, and that’s why I’m so delighted that, for once, this is a solvable problem.
Ms. Rumbelow, you don’t need to take the bus. I mean, you can if you’d like, but you don’t have to. You also don’t have to speed in your modern car, because that solves nothing and just makes trouble for you and maybe could be a needless risk to others. Besides, that’s boring. You just need to find yourself some fantastic little Spitfire or MG, something you can really throw around and ideally with less than 100 hp.
Then, when it comes time to drive anywhere, just wring that little bastard out as much as you’d like, and feel the grin crawl across your face as your hair whips around and that little motor screams.
See? Problem solved. You’re welcome.
Also, I don’t think Mr.Toad had hair.
Top photo: The Times, Sunny Side Classics
Taking the bus, especially the midnight bus, is very much risking death in many places, All the thrill you ever need!
bangladesh bus racing
I will 100% agree that driving isn’t fun anymore, but speed limits/enforcement isn’t the issue. For me, the issue is distracted and/or entitled drivers. And it doesn’t matter how far out into the country you go, they’ll always be there.
Dirt roads are still exciting and dry lake beds. You can easily and safely get above 80mph.
“Ms Helen Rumbelow, seen of late canoodling with Jeremy Ginontop, has clearly moved on from Rory Ryemiddle.”
She has such a stereotypical ‘opinionated Times columnist’ name, I’m half wondering if she’s made up.
At this point I’m gonna start assuming AI unless proven otherwise. Not that “fake reporter” is anything new, but any chance to blame AI seems like a good one.
Yeah! Slow car fast, etc. Back when I had a Gen 1 Honda Insight for commuting, I almost put one of those tall neon bike flags on it, I’m sure it was near invisible (esp in silver) to some drivers.
Or the other common answer, take it to the track.
But buying a fun little car is probably a better way to spend money. I intend to do so myself once I retire.
Driving 50mph in Jason’s 2CV is many things – boring is not one of them.
Just take a chainsaw to your batteries. That ought to get you hot in the loins.
I’ll never understand the gripes about speed enforcement. I live in Australia where it’s taken very seriously and speed cameras are everywhere.
Guess what? They’re all placed in high traffic areas, dangerous stretches of road, big intersections, and school zones. The traffic in those areas is smoother, more predictable, and altogether calmer.
Even in the UK, nobody is placing speed cameras on rural backroads with low traffic. All the fun places are still fun.
If you’re complaining about the speed enforcement as it is today, you’re just admitting you liked creating dangerous situations where a ton of other people live and drive.
I just got back from a week in France, and I must beg to differ. They had cameras everywhere in the countryside (at least in Champagne and the Loire Valley where we spent the most time), and in areas near not a damn thing.
Of course, 80/90 kph on some of these roads felt terrifyingly fast, so there’s that.
Maybe they don’t in rural UK. Or maybe they do and Ppnw really likes low speed limits.
Towing home a project this weekend from rural Quebec, I noted that I was driving below the speed limit because the roads were goddamn terrifying.
What’s more dangerous than a windy back road? A windy backroad where the asphalt is 30 years overdue for a re-pave.
I got three points for doing 56 in a 50 on a twisty B-road. One of the downsides of commuting along the standard Lotus road test route is the random speed camera vans.
This is what i was getting at. I’ve heard horror stories about France and how strict they are. I’ve never driven in a place where so many people were doing the speed limit so exactly. I drove as cautiously as possible, but I’m hoping I don’t get a nice surprise ticket as a souvenir….
While I broadly agree, in the States, speed limits aren’t always set for safety, they’re sometimes set as speed traps or unknown reason and they can vary along a road that has little other changes seemingly for the hell of it (or to set up speed traps). Ramp limits are also absurdly low and, if anyone actually followed them in many places, they’d cause a crash. Sure, it could be argued that everyone should be doing the 25 mph limit where 50 is safe, but people tend to drive where they’re comfortable, so with the exception of areas near schools or other heavily populated areas that have lots of pedestrians, vehicles turning in and out, etc., if almost everyone is driving well over the posted limit, the limit is set too low, (I believe they’re supposed to be set by recording traffic and pegging it to some percentage of observed speeds, but like traffic light programming at far too many intersections, I think much of it is set by morons who can’t find work doing anything else who are given their job by family in government). Some highway ramps probably should be 25, but when they’re all posted that low (even switchover highway-to-highway ramps that are safe at double that), people tend to disregard all posted speeds as arbitrary. If this is a US-only thing, I understand, as we have our particular breed of stupid government BS here, but perhaps it applies elsewhere, I don’t know.
In the UK you really want to already know the back road you’re driving on, just so you’re forewarned about (eg) blind turnings that might suddenly spawn a tractor, but you generally don’t have to worry about speed cameras or coppers.
(May I suggest the B4077 as a good example?)
This was also the appeal small displacement sport bikes like the old Honda MB5 and the newer Cagiva Mito. With the displacement of a shot glass you could ride everywhere at full throttle and barely crack a city speed limit.
Not to mention you get the fun of shifting constantly. Modern supersports basically live in 1st and 2nd in the city, it’s like you have an automatic.
“That’s the fact Jack!”
Nothing more thrilling(terrifying) than driving something the height of most traffic hubs.
That’s a lovely piece.
Sammy Hagar’s looking different these days
That never works for me. My LBC was a Jensen Healey Sportster with the 903 Lotus Motor. Truly a vehicle that was capable of the unexpected. You could easily burn rubber or cruise a highway at over 100 mph. The sounds that engine made were orgasmic and Jaguaresgue. Sure it had the British quirkiness but no one who drove one would be satisfied with a low HP British Car again
A combination of a reasonably powered car and roads with an appropriate speed limit are a great combination. Last fall the Fiata went on some curvy roads in the sticks and the 55 mph speed limit was plenty to have fun without speeding 🙂
Such perfect advice. I had my MGB from 1988 until 2016, and now drive a TR6, and though it has a bit more pep, it’s still just as bare bones and thrilling as the B. Actually speeding in it is cheap entertainment!
I miss my TR6 on a regular basis. It burned to the ground almost 20 years ago. Cherish what you have, friends.
The father of a friend still daily drives his ’68 MGB that he bought in ’72, all summer long.
I’ve never seen him speed, and in an MGB you don’t have to!
I remember riding in it for the first time, trying to figure out the odd lap belt buckle setup. My friend looks over and says “Don’t bother, it won’t save you.” 10/10 car.
She could just take a trip over to the Isle of Man.
Motorcycles, too! My KLX230 does 0-60 in ‘Maybe?’ and exceeding the speed limit takes effort (speedo reads 10% high, and I have to consciously hit that extra 10% to not be a rolling roadblock). It’s still fun!
Although, all that said, I’m a doughy middle-aged nerd on a weedy, bright green dual-sport. I could light my jacket on fire and try and jump a row of Cybertrucks filled with the hostile fauna of Australia and it wouldn’t be enough danger to make me sexy.
Pretty much this, though I don’t think one has to go that extreme. On the flip side, it’s why modern performance cars make no sense to me and have no appeal—too much power to use and they’re heavy and isolated so they’re completely boring at anything other than cases of excessive speeding and I even wonder about that. I’d take another FWD early ’80s Subaru over any modern exotic, never mind German wonder sedans or “performance” SUVs. Not sure where I’d get 13″ tires anymore and the bolt pattern and offset was too odd for larger options (I think there was a Peugeot wheel in 14″s that fit, but I imagine even 14s aren’t so easy to find), but at least they lasted a while even driving the wheels off them since the cars weighed so little.
Not to mention that increasingly, those driving modern stuff do so with them completely buttoned up, windows closed and almost zero connection to the outside world beyond visuals. It’s almost like playing a video game. Except video games don’t themselves have computers that modulate your inputs or the consequences thereof.
Yup, I even see this with many of the few convertibles on appropriate top-down days. I don’t care for convertibles, but I drive windows down all the time. They don’t want us driving with them down because it’s more efficient with AC on (at highway speeds, but I’ve been unable to observe any meaningful difference in fairly aerodynamic cars between AC on windows up/AC off windows down/AC on windows down/AC off windows up, so it’s got to be small. Modern AC is pretty impressive, though. I remember when you could definitely tell it was using more fuel and turning it on was like knocking the timing way back), but windows down with music playing is one of those simple pleasures, so damned if I’m giving it up. Helps to have a car where I can put my elbow on the window sill, too.
My (’02) Mustang has this wonderfully silly feature where if you mash the gas pedal from a standstill, the car momentarily turns off both the a/c and the traction control.
And totally on top-up convertibles all the time. At this point, they’re like the automotive version of diver’s watches – used by many to signal they’re a certain kind of person rather than to actually be used as intended.
I think that’s actually a great feature.
Way more useful than its electrically adjustable “perfomance” lumbar support that doesn’t seem to do anything.
My car didn’t come with any lumbar support, so I added a blood pressure cuff in front of the seat back springs and ran the inflation bulb up by the seatbelt anchors like something from the ’80s. Works well, though, and they’re cheap.
I remember those! But I can’t recall the cars they came on.
My memory is fuzzy and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen them on other makes, but I think it was especially a Chrysler thing. I believe the ’80s Daytona and its clones had it and maybe the Conquest.
Pretty much every car turns off the AC when you floor it.
I just bought a convertible (MX-5/Miata), and now I silently judge people who I see driving their convertible with the roof up when it’s not raining. I’ve always driven with the window open at least a bit though, even in the worst weather.
“Farewell, Gentleman’s Relish.”
Farewell indeed.
“Gentleman’s Relish” sounds like a term James May would use for semen.
It really does.
It is a term the boys from Top Gear used for that. On several episodes
There was a shock-jock-adjacent radio show I used to listen to that absolutely landed on this definition of Gentleman’s Relish.
He 100% has.
Ahem: Miata Is Always The Answer…
All the fun at 30mph as the Bugeye with none of the reliability worries and easy one-handed softtop deployment for unpredictable British weather. I loved my Miata as I could drive at 10/10ths all the time and never worry about breaking the speed limit. Still one of my favorite cars I’ve owned.
Yup. All the noise, revs and wind you could ever want, all below the legal limit. My NA even leaks a teeny bit of oil for the full English sporting experience.
I’m on my 7th Miata. I’ve had NAs, NBs, And an NC. Had stock, had factory turbo with Add ons (flying Miata), one with an add on turbo (fab9) and one with a Jackson racing supercharger. Miata’s that we’re quick enough to embarrass plenty of muscle cars, and all handled like they were on rails with some approaching 300+ hp. I can say that after all the spirited driving and track days, nothing beats the 7th. A little 91 BRG with its stock 1.6l and 5 speed.
All the suped up Miata’s I’ve had were great fun and would have you laughing hysterically, but the trusty, 100 hp a good day, 91 NA is always guaranteed to leave you smiling ear to earwith pure joy of driving it flat out. Feels like you’re doing 100 though you’re only doing 50 ???? and you can tell the car is doing everything it can to make you happy.
The ND will easily break any speed limit. It is very enjoyable on a spring day with the top down, the heat on just a little, accelerating through the turns… and keeping it close to legal while doing so.
Those yellow speed signs are just suggestions. It makes a commute through the hills something to look forward to.
I had an NB 10AE, which was basically a non-turbo version of the Mazdaspeed, before the Mazdaspeed came out.
I am sometimes shocked at seemingly out-of-touch speed limits, and I drive a tin can. Out west, we are seeing more and more 75 MPH highways, which is nice. I go back east, and I am constantly WTF’ing at these 55 MPH highways
The 80mph in Utah seems quite appropriate, they tested it for like 10 years and it was proven safer than 75mph. Plus there is less difference between the speeders and everyone else.
Keep in mind, most tires fitted to commercial trucks are only speed-rated for 70 mph and the freeways of Texas, especially in the summer, are littered with “road gators.” Remnants of blow tires and peeled recaps. But Texas, being Texas, is fine with 18-wheelers doing 75 (ha! right).
Put her on a Honda Super Cub and send her out on the M1.
Or for real thrills, a Piper Cub on the M1!
…When it runs, that is.
I prefer the Austin-Healey…7-Up…
I’ll see myself out…
You know what would be even better than a classic British roadster? A classic British roadster with the power of a modern high-end sports car. Put a tuned LS/LT V8 engine in that shit(or maybe an EV conversion with a Tesla Model 3 motor), and now you’ve amplified all of the most dangerous qualities of the British roadster. You can’t go wrong.
Even throwing a modern day, 200-250hp naturally aspirated, four cylinder in a classic British roadster would work.
Can use the VW 2.slow and most would have double the stock hp.
Imagine doing 0-60 mph < 5 seconds with that engine.
Well the Jensen Interceptor from the 70s had a Chrysler 318 V-8 in it. A decent affordable sports car for a collector
Interceptors ran Mopar Big Blocks. Started with the 383 and later the 440. I very much want one.
What’s TVR up to these days?
Have you seen our petrol prices recently?
Yes. Put an LS-series V8 with electronic fuel injection into a stock-bodied Triumph GT6, and you will get 30 mpg at a steady 70 mph and get low-mid 20s in the city. This is also a car that will run 11s in the 1/4 mile all day long.
Now, take a car of the same mass, and turn it into a streamliner with about 1/2 the Triumph GT6’s CdA value and watch what happens. I bet 50 mpg at 70 mph with a big, thirsty V8 is possible.
Little British Cars from 50+ years ago are more efficient platforms than modern vehicles. Modern vehicles get the fuel economy they do with better engine/transmission technology, mostly, when compared to these tiny old machines. Kind of sad that we’ve went so far backwards, really.
I have a datsun roadster I’m periodically working on. Its so stinking small I intend to put LED whips, like off a UTV on it, just so it can be seen in big truck sideview and rearview mirrors. I’m not even totally sure it would show up on their “hey there is someone next to you” monitors.
1600 or 2000?
Just add a radar reflector or two, and now you’re visible across even more of the electromagnetic spectrum!
https://www.westmarine.com/davis-instruments-economy-echomaster-radar-reflector-107961.html