Panda. ‘The other two always take the
piss,’ he said. ‘But small, simple cars are
actually the way to enjoy driving. The
sensations of driving, the tactile and
visceral stuff, happen at lower speeds and
in many ways are exaggerated by the
simplicity of the car, the immediacy of
the controls and its responses to the
road.’
People’s Cars are synonymous with
volume manufacturing — something
which is clearly the Achilles’ heel
of British-owned automotive
manufacturing. While May concedes that
Britain is still a good place to make cars
— as the huge and productive factories
owned by the likes of Nissan, Honda,
BMW and GM attest — he does suggest
that Britain might not have a complete
automotive sector any more.
‘The true measure of automotive
greatness is cars for the people, not exotic
stuff made in sheds by people with
obscure philosophies about what it means
to own an Aston Martin,’ he said. It’s not
about that, it’s about what it means
to own an Austin Maxi — very
space-efficient and very underrated. Of
course, it wouldn’t start in the morning,
but then it was made by communists, so
you can’t expect it to work.
‘In the public consciousness, having a
motor industry means having a new Jag
that’s made in the Midlands by Midlands
blokes wearing jackets in sheds, and
that’s something for Britain to be proud
of. But that’s a dated idea.’
May added: ‘The idea that cars have
national characteristics, or marque
characteristics, is slightly facile. In the
old days cars were made very much
according to the influence of one man,
like [original Jaguar designer] Sir
William Lyons, or a small group of people
like the Citroën team, which designed the
DS, and there would be a striking differ-
ence between what Jaguar and Citroën
would come up with, because Lyons’ ideas
were very different from André Citroën’s.
‘But these days, they’re more
complicated and there’s so much more
legislation, they’re more a committee
thing. If you set out to make a four-door
family saloon, you know what you’ve got
to do before you set out. It’s not a black
art anymore. It has been worked out.’
But even the black art could do with
some improvement, said May. ‘One of the
first things that strikes you when you
drive a Seventies car is the door pillars
are slim and the glass area is big and
there’s a great sense of roominess. One of
Supercars and
People’s cars:
Bugatti Veyron,
above, and the
Austin Maxi
the downsides of safety legislation is
the thick door pillars and doors full of
side-impact beams and airbags cuts
down on the visibility.’
Also, he said, it makes cars much
heavier. ‘I also fly light aircraft, and I
don’t understand why my little plane
weighs about 670kg when it has a 32ft
wingspan and seats two people, but a
little sports car that we revere as
lightweight still weighs 1,000kg. Where’s
all that bloody weight coming from?
FutuRe
of automotive technology
‘The adventure of motoring has palled a
bit… the vast majority of cars on sale at the
moment are pretty tedious, to be honest’
the EnGIneeR 21 APRIL–4 MAY 2008 33
Even if you get rid of only a little bit of it,
it makes a hell of a difference.’
So, what does May think is the
future of driving? ‘I have my little
fantasy,’ he mused, ‘about anti-matter
powered levitating capsules flying
around the sky guided by electronic
highways. The future of moving around
must be in the air, because that’s where
the space is.’ It’s possible, he admitted,
that he has seen Blade Runner a few too
many times.
INTERVIEW
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