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[Cooperman]

I thought I would post under this heading as from reading many post there does seem to be some confusion between 'Handling' and 'Road-Holding'.

Now, Road-Holding is the measure of the cornering force the car is capable of generating under any given condition. It is measured in G-force and is largely down to the design of the vehicle, the tyres used, tyre pressures and the suspension and damper settings. It will vary a lot depending on surface plus, of course, whether it is wet or dry.

Handling, however, is more subjective as it can be defined as the way in which the car responds to dynamic inputs. The dynamic inputs are power, braking and steering. It is nothing at all to do with road-holding.

Thus it is possible to have a car with superb road-holding but atrocious handling, and vice-versa. Take, for example, a car being driven on tarmac but fitted with gravel/forest tyres. It may handle very well under power and braking, with excellent steering response and good predictability under all conditions, but the road-holding, measured as 'G', will be poor as it will start to slide out low-ish speeds.

Conversely, I have driven, and helped to set-up, Minis on racing tyres where the road-holding was simply fantastic, but the handling was unpredictable and vague.

One of the best handling Minis I've ever driven was an early 850 on cross-ply tyres but the road-holding was absolutely dreadful.