Matt Prior: Small cars are where real luxury lies Car News

Oh for a quiet little car. That’s what our esteemed editor Steve Cropley wanted the other week when he wondered why there isn’t a compact car that offers true luxury; the one who pampers, however, is not impossible to park. A small car with such good noise cancellation that you might enjoy pauses on Radio 3.

I think it’s a more common desire than the auto industry thinks. It’s as if compactness is anathema to those who push expensive cars; they think if you want luxury you’ll want it in a five-meter-long package. I am not sure this is the case.

I have met a bunch of readers who own sports or luxury cars who tell me that in the end, they spend more time driving their offspring’s Mini, their Volkswagen Golf R or, more and more, something. thing like a Toyota GR Yaris, because smaller cars are easier to rub with. They reserve their supercars for special occasions; and when you see a big luxury sedan these days I think there’s a better chance of having a professional driver than “full light” seemed like a joke. the owner being at the wheel.

Yet true luxury makes your life easier and more comfortable, and a car that you can maneuver and park easily does just that. Why wouldn’t you want that? Small cars make a lot more sense than big cars – if only they were, as Steve noted, as cocooning or quiet.

How quieter is a real luxury car than a small car? By a little, even on regular examples, not just the low budget ones. I have gone through the cab noise figures from every test drive this year to date; and although the noise cancellation is not limited to what the decibel level (dBA) will tell you (because some frequencies are more annoying than others and there is a world that I don’t quite understand ), our “noise at 70 mph” figure is a consistent benchmark.

At highway cruising speed, most cars have between 66 dBA and 70 dBA of cabin noise. The 2021 test sample size isn’t huge, but electric cars are, on average, quieter than ICE cars – albeit only with a mustache, and they’re easily matched by larger ICE cars. silent. The Audi E-tron (66dBA), Volkswagen ID 3 (67dBA) and Toyota Mirai (66dBA) are muted, as are the Vauxhall Mokka (66dBA) and Kia Sorento (66dBA).

I think the size and aggressiveness of the tires, plus a stiff suspension or subframe to handle their noise, is a much bigger factor. The Peugeot 508 PSE’s 71dBA and the BMW M4’s 73dBA are only behind the McLaren GT’s 74dBA (which not only has big tires and a screaming engine but also a super stiff carbon fiber monocoque).