A friend texted me to say that he was envious of the cars I've driven recently - Aston Martin Valhalla and Audi RS5 - and to let me know that he's in a Hyundai i10 courtesy car at the moment.

Hold on: you are the one envious of me? I will admit that I've had very nice times in some very good cars recently, but to experience the sub-tonne kerb weight of an i10 and revel in the snicketiness of its five-speed manual gearbox, and to be doing so for the very first time, is something worth envying in itself.

I think I was more excited for him than he was for me. The i10 is a car that's just 3.67m long and only 1.68m across the body, and those would be good attributes even if the smallest Hyundai wasn't a decent car to drive, but it is.

If I'd been slung the keys to it having never tried one before, I think I'd have been thrilled. So thrilled, in fact, that if I could replicate a drive I took in 2023, along some of the 1553 miles of Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way in a Kia Picanto, in one of the three cars previously mentioned (Jaguar, Ferrari or Hyundai), I'm not at all sure which I'd pick.

From a professional standpoint, it would be one of the new ones, of course. And both disguise their weight (around 1700kg for the Ferrari and likely 2700kg-plus for the Jaguar) well, but there is a limit to what fast steering and clever suspension can do.

In the same way that Americans say there's no replacement for displacement, when it comes to driving on small, bendy roads there's no better rightness than lightness. For me, less weight is simply better.

This is one of the reasons I'm so seldom disappointed to climb back into my 990kg Audi A2, regardless of what new car I've been driving. And it's why the most thrilling car I've driven in the past umpteen years has been the 385kg LCC Rocket, a design from more than 35 years ago.

In fact, I can't think of a car and especially a modern one that I wouldn't have preferred if it had weighed less. Even if we're talking Caterhams, the 440kg 170 model is perhaps my favourite in the Seven range because, despite its power compromises, it is the lightest. And if I were to specify my own (and I came close), I'd spend on small weight savings.

Is there an optimum vehicle weight, I wonder? I'm not sure there is.

Motorcycles are light but mine, at around 200kg, is better when there are no bags or luggage racks fitted. Karts are lighter still, but on the last one I owned, I took off as much cladding as I could and still drilled some holes in what was left. And so it goes on: I prefer my old 14kg, unsuspended mountain bike to a 35kg, battery-assisted Lime rental bike.

My gym trainers feel better to pull on than my country walking boots. I think the key to these things is that the less inertia involved, the more the machine feels like an extension of your body.