Faster supercars from 1995.

Just watching a clip from Top Gear and Clarkson made the statement about the Porsche Carrera that McLaren proved in 1994 that man had the technology to make road cars able to do 240mph, and Porsche and the others have held back from doing that in recent times.

So WI carmakers kept up this trend of ever faster supercars, what would we be looking at now? Would cars have stagnated at 240-250mph much like fighter jets stagnated at mach 2-2.5, and just filled out the envelope within this limit? Or would we be looking at cars doing 270mph, with accelration so high that they can reach it as readily as an F40 can do 200pmh?
 
Just watching a clip from Top Gear and Clarkson made the statement about the Porsche Carrera that McLaren proved in 1994 that man had the technology to make road cars able to do 240mph, and Porsche and the others have held back from doing that in recent times.

So WI carmakers kept up this trend of ever faster supercars, what would we be looking at now? Would cars have stagnated at 240-250mph much like fighter jets stagnated at mach 2-2.5, and just filled out the envelope within this limit? Or would we be looking at cars doing 270mph, with accelration so high that they can reach it as readily as an F40 can do 200pmh?

In EVO magazine's article on the Bugatti Veyron a few years back, the engineers on that car said that at the top speed it was moving at, it needed 8.5 horsepower for every mph of speed beyond the top end, which in the Veyron's case is 253 mph.

Now, the McLaren F1 gets to that speed using a very powerful (627 bhp) BMW V12 and very light weight (2,520 lb). The Veyron uses immense power (1001 bhp) and much more weight (4,160 lb). Going with the latter formula requires serious power. Going with the former would mean less additional power needed, but the F1 was designed with cost not being an object, so you have major problems with how you get a car to go faster. Ultimately, yes, you COULD get a car to go 270 mph, but you'd need something that is either moderately lightweight and has very high power (700+ hp in a car weighing 2,500 lbs would be about right), or something that is heavier but stupidly powerful.

Porsche at the time was making some extreme stuff - the first 911 GT1 was in 1996 - so they COULD have made the 911 GT1 into a 250 mph supercar. But that would have required at the very least about 800 horsepower to do so - the GT1 in low-downforce race trim topped out at 205 mph, with a 640 hp engine. The GT1 Evo and GT1-98 were better aerodynamically, but not that much so, and they were as good as a road car could expect to be.
 
Dunno if this is true -- you have to take everything Clarkson says with a grain of salt. he does tend to the bombastic and hyperbole.

The Veyron, with a top speed of 250MPH, needs 1001BHP to get there and will empty its fuel tanks in less than 8 minutes at that speed (and even with its million-Euro price VW lost about that much on each one). The Veyron was never intended to be anything ther than a technology showcase for VW-Audi, a "look what we can do" halo car for the group.

Furthermore, the McLaren F1 was virtually uncontrollable at it's 241mph top speed, and so forth. The fastest road car remains the Callaway Sledgehammer with an instrumented top speed of 254.735mph at VW's Ehra-Lessein track back in the 90's.

Really, these speeds are not new -- at least for race cars. The Porsche 917LH was hitting that speed on the Mulsanne Straight at Le Mans in 1969, and the Sauber-Mercedes could do the same in the 90s, leading to the two chicanes added to the straight the next year.

Porsche's Carrera GT is more than capable of those speeds, as it was originally developed as a Le Mans car to compete with the Audi R8 but Porsche abandoned the race program in favour of the Cayenne sport-ute. In re-engineering the car for the road they wisely decided that driveability was more important than top speed. The top speed wars have been won by VW and, with the exception of some specialty builders, is unlikely to rise more anytime soon. After all, 250MPH is faster than the takeoff speeds of most aircraft ever built.
 
The Veyron is shaped like a brick, uses half its power to drive 3 diffs and weighs as much as a Toyota Landcruiser, no wonder it needs 1000hp to go 10mph faster than the Maclaren. In my mind the way forward would be to tame the McLaren, perhaps by adding some Formula 1 style goodies like traction control while still keeping the weight way down. One starting point would be losing the aircon, carpet, GPS, stereo and all that shit. If you want to be comfortable get into one of your other cars, and when you want to go balls to the wall and use your expensive driver training thats when you forgo the luxury shit and get into your supercar.
 
The Veyron is shaped like a brick, uses half its power to drive 3 diffs and weighs as much as a Toyota Landcruiser, no wonder it needs 1000hp to go 10mph faster than the Maclaren.

Pretty much my opinion on that car in one sentence.


In my mind the way forward would be to tame the McLaren, perhaps by adding some Formula 1 style goodies like traction control while still keeping the weight way down. One starting point would be losing the aircon, carpet, GPS, stereo and all that shit. If you want to be comfortable get into one of your other cars, and when you want to go balls to the wall and use your expensive driver training thats when you forgo the luxury shit and get into your supercar.

That is an option, but I doubt it would save that much more than 50kg.
 
There seems to be quite the market for Superleggera versions of existing supercars, one wonders why they aren't light as possible in the first place.
 

NothingNow

Banned
There seems to be quite the market for Superleggera versions of existing supercars, one wonders why they aren't light as possible in the first place.
Because usually When you Pay a quarter of a million, you expect some Concessions to Luxury, like AC and a working Radio.

Of course some of the best sports cars and supercars in the world cost less than $120,000 USD (Chevrolet Corvette ZR1, Cadillac CTS-V, Nissan GT-R, and the Lotus Evora come to mind) so if you're spending about a quarter Million on a Car you're really doing it for the Badge and the resultant braging rights.

I of course will be quite happy with my Fantasy Miata and it's 2011 Jaguar XJL towcar.;)
 
I once read somewhere that your average Ferrari owner owns 4 other cars. The owners of the ultra top end cars are people such as the Sultan of Brunei, who owns dozens if not hundreds of cars. These people can choose to drive any car that fits their immediate driving needs, if the want to go fast in comfort they can get into their GT Ferrari, Aston or whatever. To me making a supercar luxurious, well equipped, comfortable and easy to drive at the expense of outright performance smacks of people who can't afford other cars for day to day driving, nor the lessons, practice and access to facilities needed to drive a supercar fast. As such these poverty-stricken wimps shouldn't own supercars, they should stick to lower end sportscars.
 

NothingNow

Banned
I once read somewhere that your average Ferrari owner owns 4 other cars. The owners of the ultra top end cars are people such as the Sultan of Brunei, who owns dozens if not hundreds of cars. These people can choose to drive any car that fits their immediate driving needs, if the want to go fast in comfort they can get into their GT Ferrari, Aston or whatever. To me making a supercar luxurious, well equipped, comfortable and easy to drive at the expense of outright performance smacks of people who can't afford other cars for day to day driving, nor the lessons, practice and access to facilities needed to drive a supercar fast. As such these poverty-stricken wimps shouldn't own supercars, they should stick to lower end sportscars.
:rolleyes:

Meh. I still want my Aston-Martin Cygnet.
It Kind of reminds me of a Bulldog really.:)

800px-Aston_Martin_Cygnet_%2882%29.JPG
 
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