Is it important for a car to have poke?

[treehugger]

As said, only mention it cos some body said something about joining a motor way being dicey. There's an acceleration lane for joining the A1 northbound, south of pontefract that is a right pig, about twenty yards long. I won't use it now, just go through a back way to pontefract to get to the M62.
Anyway, over to you.

[mercrocker]

Poke is relative, I suppose. You drive according to it. Cars that give the impression of having it and then don't deliver are particularly dangerous, though. My 260E was like that - not a patch on the twincam sixes and impossible to hurry up when you really, really needed it to.

[LynehamHerc]

I think it depends on what it's used for to a certain extent.

My camper certainly doesn't have and would have been a pain in the arse over the 8 years of the uni motorway shuttle, whereas the Galaxy did and was as enjoyable as could be in the circumstances.

Saying that the camper can keep up with traffic around here and I'd need something with a pretty decent power to weight ratio to overtake on the roads I normally use, especially in the summer.

[SiC]

No, not important. However its a useful trait to have in a car. Especially given the amount of people trundling in NSL at 40-50mph and braking even slower for every mild kink in the road.

[Dead_E23]

I think it depends on the nature of the car. A Jaguar XJS with the performance of my Tdi Defender would be a bit annoying to drive, but it feels fine as it is.

[Hooli]

Poke needs to match the rest of the car, if it'll corner at 120mph but struggles to reach 90mph it's going to feel crap.

I also think a lot of what we think of as poke is just good throttle response. Interesting Mercrocker mentioned 260e, I had one & it had plenty of poke once I gapped the plugs properly. Picked up great & it's party trick in the wet was accelerating off the line on the point of wheelspin as I fed the power in, once it got to 20mph I had enough throttle on for it to shift down to 1st (as they normally pull away in 2nd) at which point both rear tyres light up & it took off sideways

[SubPar]

I also think a lot of what we think of as poke is just good throttle response.

Yup. My Saab 9000 is definitely faster than my BMW 316i, but the BMW feels way more responsive, so I end up driving it faster anyway.

Neither of my cars are particularly fast. They can get out of their own way and don't feel underpowered, but it's not as if I'm doing heroic overtakes in them either. No motorways within 80 miles of me (closest is the M90 down at Perth). A lot of my driving is done on twisty A-roads that I've learned over the years, most overtakes are done on the basis of carrying momentum through sweeping bends (with good sight lines, I might add). More power would definitely help, but I'm used to my cars.

A part of me would someday like another car that genuinely makes me go "oh shit" when I stamp the throttle.

[Hooli]

A part of me would someday like another car that genuinely makes me go "oh shit" when I stamp the throttle.

The only trouble with one of them is how often you have to behave.

[Bangernomics]

Depends how you define poke.


Less annoying tag line.

[SubPar]

A part of me would someday like another car that genuinely makes me go "oh shit" when I stamp the throttle.

The only trouble with one of them is how often you have to behave.

Good point.

Due to spending years driving slow-ish cars I tend to use quite a lot of throttle fairly often. The thought crosses my mind of how much trouble I'd get into just hopping into something that actually had a decent bit of power.