The perils of holding contrary opinions

Do you have motoring opinions so toxic, so unpopular, that you dare not consider vocalising them?

It’s certainly safer to keep them to yourself. At the recent launch of the Porsche 718 Spyder RS, I was sitting at dinner with a crack team of Porsche engineers, when the subject got round to why there was no manual option on the Spyder.

The conversation took some technical meander via the current 911 GT3. Then the following words, quite unbidden, fell out of my mouth.

“People who buy a 992 GT3 with a manual gearbox can’t think for themselves.”

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Consternation happened at this glitch in international diplomacy.

Maybe it was the fatigue and jetlag that had made me wilfully ignore the residual value case. There were some translations going on at the other end of the table. Some were nodding in agreement.

Others visibly reddened. I wondered how they’d fare with “the 4.0-litre engine in your Cayman GTS is not very good” and I’m reasonably sure I could have induced a thrombo with “I think the 993 is the ugliest 911”.

But that’s the thing about unpopular opinions. They’re unpopular for a reason – sometimes as an inconvenient truth, but usually because they’re wrong.

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Nevertheless, I was on a roll. As the engineers continued to knit brows and shrug, these horrible opinions kept popping into my head.

The Jaguar E-Type is a curiously proportioned car. Caterham owners are best avoided. A Golf R is dynamically better than a GTI. Daniel Ricciardo is motorsport’s most irritating personality. BMW E30 M3s are usually disappointing to drive.

I think I was actually smiling to myself when in moseyed the belief that one man couldn’t have designed both the Miura and the Countach, that Mercedes should have given up on the AMG One a long time ago, that the Jeep Grand Cherokee might be the worst-driven vehicle on Australian roads and the new BMW M3 is better-looking than an Alfa Giulia Q. I’m sorry, it was late.

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You see, we can tenuously believe things, often based on little in the way of logic or reason. Okay, so I could probably be argued out of a few of them with little resistance, but it’s a fact that we all have these oddball opinions.

What’s more, they often seem to have a natural home: an internet comments section where there’s some reassuring semblance of anonymity.

Several of my colleagues abide by the stern edict ‘never read the comments’. Some will never read direct messages sent to them on the likes of Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. I, however, have a thick skin and a morbid curiosity, so I can’t help but dive in.

My very favourites are the champs who make some proclamation that merely underlines the fact that they haven’t read the feature or watched the video they're opining on.

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One downside of this hailstorm of opinion is is that there are surprisingly few motoring journalists who have the confidence and expertise to offer a strident yet considered verdict on a new car.

Most are quite content to parrot the opinions of others, aware that putting your head above the parapet can be hazardous. Autocar’s Matt Prior, one of the best in the business, has decided to own the venom of commenters with his Instagram bio which quotes a reader thus: “You, sir, are the worst car reviewer on the internet.”

I’ll stand by my opinions. They might be unpopular but at least they’re mine.