Meaden recalls the mid-engined highs – and lows – of his driving career
@DickieMeaden
THE FIRST MID-ENGINED CAR I EVER DROVE was a Ferrari. Don’t get too envious, it was a Mondial. Not just any Mondial, mind, but the rare-as-rare Mondial T fitted with Valeo’s semi-auto gearbox. Weirdly, it had the wand-like gated manual stick but no clutch pedal, the actuation of the clutch triggered by a tilt switch in the lever when you made the shift.
It was a strange fish. The tech came from the factory Lancia rally team, who got Valeo to develop the system for the Integrale. Once you got your head around timing the shifts – I pushed a ‘ghost’ pedal with my left foot until I’d nailed the cadence – it was surprisingly slick and satisfying. I suspect it would probably feel less dated than the F1 paddleshift it begat.
Aged just 22, I was cock-a-hoop about taking a Ferrari home, but I do recall it being a bit spikey. Then again, this was 1993 and I’d been weaned on Car drive stories from the days when mid-engined cars were agile but unforgiving, and the likes of the Lancia Stratos and Maserati Bora were described as widowmakers. I think I’d have been disappointed if it hadn’t been tricky.
Curious to experience what all the mid-engined fuss was about, I wasted no time in heading home from Carweek’s London offices, collecting my mate Tim and heading to a quiet roundabout not too far from home. It was dark and raining, but this didn’t deter me from my cunning plan: to circulate said roundabout at roulette ball velocities until something happened.
‘Something’ was the front pushing wider and wider, until I backed off and physics took over, the Mondial snapping into oversteer and unceremoniously firing us into the centre of the roundabout. Thankfully the rapid gyration was a vivid but harmless lesson in mid-engined handling traits; a low kerb, a Ferrari-sized gap in the otherwise hefty gorse bushes and a near-miss with a road sign leaving the Mondial – and my nascent road testing career – undamaged.
Save a less eventful weekend in an early Honda NSX, exposure to mid-engined cars was somewhat limited for the next few years, even after joining Performance Car, simply because there weren’t that many mid-engined cars around to try. Lotus was still building the Esprit, but Ferrari had dropped the F512 M in favour of the 550 and Lamborghini made only the Diablo. Speaking of which, my first Lambo was also something of a unicorn – the Diablo VT Roadster. Sufficiently intimidating to snuff out any ill-ad
