BEST OF THE BEST
“ NO HOLDS BARRED, HOW GREAT CAN AN OLD AIRCOOLED 911 BE?”
ROB DICKINSON, FOUNDER SINGER VEHICLE DESIGN
The eyes fitted as standard equipment to most human heads have a field of vision roughly 210° wide and 120° tall. We have IMAX vision, experience the world in widescreen, and can, to a limited extent, see behind us. Our eyes are radar dishes for visible light, wide open and receiving, permanently pulling in a fabulous amount of information. And right now my scope is exceptional, photons arriving from a rich, clear sky, gently swaying Welsh moorland, distant mountains, a willowy, dancing slice of tarmac and an angry gold dial. My eyes are happy, happy, happy.
No human eye ever had a zoom function. So why, with peripheral vision greedily absorbing this spectrum of blue, green, black and gold, and at a range of at least 50 metres (albeit closing fast), can I spot an index finger lifting off the steering wheel of a car heading towards me? At this distance it can only be about five pixels tall. Our eyes are good at detecting movement, we focus in a fraction of a second. The finger waggles. Slowly, calmly.
The effect this tiny movement has on me is dramatic. Heart rate spikes to the red line at a rate even the astonishing flat-six snarling away behind me can’t match, palms prickle, mouth goes dry. In
