As a counterpoint, when I was a young student learning the trumpet, my learning took a big jump forward when I switched to a professional-grade instrument.
Every small improvement in technique was matched by an immediate response from the instrument, giving me much better feedback on what to do right. I imagine the same is true when learning to race cars. You can learn a lot driving an Escort, but you'll learn a lot faster driving a Corvette.
Hmmmm. Yeah, probably with subtle differences. For example, you'd probably want a proper track-prepped car to learn on, because the feedback to your inputs is just, frankly, BETTER. You don't necessarily want a "faster" (eg, more powerful) car, because the power hides your corner speed mistakes. Hence the aphorism "it's better to drive a slow car fast than a fast car slow". But overall, I think you're right, driving a tool that's better for the job probably makes you learn a lot faster.
Every small improvement in technique was matched by an immediate response from the instrument, giving me much better feedback on what to do right. I imagine the same is true when learning to race cars. You can learn a lot driving an Escort, but you'll learn a lot faster driving a Corvette.