ABDC 2018: Losing my Best Driver’s virginity

Week-long performance party

You get the impression from the week-long high-performance party that is ‘Australia’s Best Driver’s Car’ that the seemingly inevitable motoring.com.au autonomous cars event ‘Australia’s Best No-Drivers Cars’ won’t be quite as predictably dull as the software might like.

From the positive road-trip vibes that pervade ABDC it’s pretty clear that even when we’re forced to take a back seat to leave the ECU at the job of driving, the good times won’t necessarily do the same.

The march towards a future filled with ‘mobility solutions’ and algorithms that can drive a car more safely than your mum – other than when the software experiences an unforeseen error – is reason enough to champion the ABDC cause. Let’s have an ABDC championship series with three or four rounds a year, I reckon.

I’m writing, dear reader, as the new guy. Not new to performance cars or the motoring publishing business, but as someone who has never before held a ticket to the cross-country express that is Australia’s Best Driver’s Car.

Finally, a real driving event

Having been on more than my share of road tests (or, more accurately, ‘photo shoots’) I can assure you that turning a love of cars into a job, while a brilliant thing to do – as long as you can handle an average day that’s longer than your salary figure – does have a knack of letting that pesky work business get in the way of a good drive.

The bleary-eyed driver’s briefing at motoring.com.au HQ seems familiar, then, but that we spend most of day one driving, rather than trying to capture “Just one more static image, but with the car that way. No, no, no. The other left. Now back a bit. Forward…” Well, it comes as a bit of a shock.

The friendly and efficient photo and video crew are simply set up waiting for a banzai pass from each of the 14 cars in train. What you see in the pictures and videos is us going for a quick country drive, not pretending to do the same. Basically, what I’m trying to say is if ABCD looks like fun, it’s not an illusion.

But back to the future for a sec, and more surely than they will take away our God-given steering wheels, we’re set to lose, one by one, car features we love. The affordable local rear-driver muscle car has already gone, so thanks go to the Ford Mustang GT and Kia Stinger 330Si for turning up as substitutes.

Yet continuing on a stocktake of the 14-strong field reveals a current driver’s car status quo that’s healthier than you might figure.

A stellar field

It bodes well that precisely half of them are rear-drive – the Lexus LC 500 and Alfa Romeo Giulia QV are highlights; we’re not sure whether to count the Mercedes-AMG E63 S 4MATIC+and BMW M5 in their RWD modes – and that half the field are manuals, including hot hatch trio the Suzuki Swift Sport, Hyundai i30 N and Honda Civic Type R.

Four starters are of that increasingly rare breed of manual rear-drives, and they’re affordable too – the Subaru BRZ tS, Mazda MX-5 RF Limited Edition, Nissan 370Z NISMO and the Ford Mustang GT Track Pack.

We have five naturally aspirated engines – two bent-eights, two four-pots and a V6 – even the odd handbrake lever. There is something here for everyone.

>>Get all the 2018 Australia's Best Driver's Car results here

I’ll spare you the judges’ bios, which you can read here, suffice to say that as well as experienced journos we have credentialed racing drivers. You’ll know reigning Bathurst 1000 champ Luke Youlden, and his dad, 1990-91 Australian Production champ Kent Youlden too, as well as the versatile Greg Crick of tin-top, sports sedan, Targa and GT racing note.

I won’t add up the combined motoring journo years of the motoring.com.au crew and associates. Some of them contribute more than their fair share to the tally, and one journo revealed to me that he’s travelled to so many car launches that sometimes he wakes at home for a wee in the closet, thinking he’s in a hotel room in Munich.

And so we have a fine fleet of machines, an enviable breadth and depth of judging experience with the Victorian High Country as spectacular backdrop.

Like herding cats…

The first leg is the trickiest, according to the stupendously well-organised Matty Brogan, motoring.com.au’s chief wrangler (aka Road-Test Editor). Tricky, in that we need to extricate 14 cars from Melbourne peak hour.

I’m in the Hyundai i30 N first up, a recent arrival I’d looked forward to. The focus is on following a road book and a snaking convoy as the fog lifts from the skyline, rather than the car. Yet, over the course of the week – and an RSI-inducing blat on the convoluted Eildon-Jamieson Road. Seat time in the rambunctious yet well-rounded i30 N – and the Kia Stinger – rebooted my perceptions on what Korea can do.

The Ford Mustang, which can feel clunky in the ’burbs, came together as more than the sum of its parts.

With room to flex its accelerator on the C521 from Whitfield to Mansfield, the Honda Civic Type R provided an eye-widening update on the fast front-drive state of the art, its downshift rev-matching – a feature shared by the i30 N and 370Z NISMO – coming as all the gearbox automation I could wish for.

I’d travelled across the world for 10min of track time in the Lexus LC 500, which wasn’t long enough for the road-going concept car to leave an impression. My ABDC blast confirmed it does deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as the LFA, the 500’s bent-eight sonics putting it among the best-soundtrack nominees, with the Mercedes-AMG E63 S 4MATIC+and the Alfa Romeo Giulia QV.

Meal ticket

Yet, with no disrespect to the spectacular machinery, or the humble fun cars in convoy – the Suzuki Swift Sport is such a torquey little hot-hatch! – the meal plan is possibly the most important ABDC element.

You can get away with dropping the ball on breakfast, while ordering the odd salad for lunch isn’t scoffed at, and comes as part of good planning for the invariably hearty pub dinner.

There’s plenty to catch up on, the day’s car swaps and many hundreds of kays leaving little time for chin wagging. Over a few well-earned ales the chat shifts from deconstructing the entrée menu, to car chassis, brands and the entire industry.

When the bigwigs are putting the autonomous future anywhere from precisely four years away to ‘not in my lifetime’, depending on who you ask, we’re not really sure how quickly the clock is ticking on Australia’s Best Driver’s Car, but it sure is getting late.

Time to call it a day, then, in readiness for one of the few things I’ll willingly get up early for – a hard day’s driving. Erm … work.