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Old 11-23-2004, 04:33 PM   #46
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But McLaren proved that forced induction was not required. You just need a company that knows how to build a good engine to design one with better specs. Even Ferrari abandoned turbocharging on it's supercars after the F40. Surely they must realize it's not ideal as well.

>8^)
ER
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Old 11-23-2004, 04:37 PM   #47
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Re: Re: Re: Gordon Murray letter in Evo to Koenigsegg?

So a car must provide a pure driving experience (thru the use of a NA engine) to be a "true" supercar?

That would mean a Lotus 7 from the 60's could be considered as a supercar. It provides a very pure driving experience.

Ferrari Enzo:
0-30mph: 1.79mph
0-60mph: 3.52secs
0-100mph: 6.69secs
Reaction time: 0.21secs
100-0mph: 4.08secs
Overall: 10.98secs

Caterham R500 Evolution:
0-30mph: 1.45mph
0-60mph: 3.21secs
0-100mph: 6.92secs
Reaction time: 0.21secs
100-0mph: 3.60secs
Overall: 10.73secs <--------------- BONKERS!!!

The Caterham is a quicker car than the Enzo from 0-100-0. But it's not really considered a supercar either... perhaps because the cost of entry isn't high enough...

So what makes a supercar a supercar??
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Old 11-23-2004, 04:43 PM   #48
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Gordon Murray letter in Evo to Koenigsegg?

Believe me, I'm all for NA engines. I drive an LS1 powered Holden. good, fun, NA V8... And i've got my eyes on a 1999 M3 and my dream car is the new E60 M5. Just because I believe NA is the best way to power a great car (and no-one does this better than BMW) doesn't mean it has to be the only way, and everything else is crap, which is what Gordon is saying...
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Old 11-23-2004, 05:41 PM   #49
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Does anyone else agree?

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Old 11-23-2004, 05:47 PM   #50
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Re: Gordon Murray letter in Evo to Koenigsegg?

Quote:
Originally Posted by MalkaJB
Does anyone else agree?


Thats the perfect Veyron equation ,no doubt about it.
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Old 11-23-2004, 06:16 PM   #51
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Gordon Murray letter in Evo to Koenigsegg?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kirium
So a car must provide a pure driving experience (thru the use of a NA engine) to be a "true" supercar?
If you are asking me - No, that's not really what I said at all.

Quote:
That would mean a Lotus 7 from the 60's could be considered as a supercar. It provides a very pure driving experience.

Ferrari Enzo: <specs removed>

Caterham R500 Evolution: <specs removed>

The Caterham is a quicker car than the Enzo from 0-100-0. But it's not really considered a supercar either... perhaps because the cost of entry isn't high enough...

So what makes a supercar a supercar??
There are lots of factors that either include or disqualify a car from 'supercar' status. Not all are easy to clarify, but generally speaking its a combination of high performance, high prestige, and high price.

>8^)
ER
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Old 11-23-2004, 06:20 PM   #52
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Gordon Murray letter in Evo to Koenigsegg?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kirium
Believe me, I'm all for NA engines. I drive an LS1 powered Holden. good, fun, NA V8... And i've got my eyes on a 1999 M3 and my dream car is the new E60 M5. Just because I believe NA is the best way to power a great car (and no-one does this better than BMW) doesn't mean it has to be the only way, and everything else is crap, which is what Gordon is saying...
See, now in my opinion, you're just reading too far into Gordon's comments and trying to give it a meaning that was not intended.

To me it seems he is saying that F/I just doesn't provide a pure driving experience, not that the technology is crap. Obviously he wouldn't have thought it was crap through the years of Formula One engines that utilized it.

>8^)
ER
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Old 11-24-2004, 08:07 AM   #53
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Re: Gordon Murray letter in Evo to Koenigsegg?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Peloton25
...The F40 and 288 GTO are the two I recall from Ferrari and both are said to be a handful in trying to control when the power kicks in. That's not a pure experience.

>8^)
ER
Tire techonology has progressed at a magnificent pace since the release of the 288 GTO & F40. They are both hampered by substandard--especially by today's standards--OE tires.

Greg A
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Old 11-24-2004, 11:02 AM   #54
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Re: Re: Re: Gordon Murray letter in Evo to Koenigsegg?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kirium
Going by your logic, if a car maker wanted to make a better supercar, it had follow the same rules as the benchmark of the time. Did McLaren do that??
Your missing the point. Mclaren "looked outside the box" because their is a better option than forced induction?...no point copying the F40 when at that time their were better options. If a manufacture creates a differeent engine other than naturaly aspirated and forced induction and puts it into a completely different but better chassis than the F1, then fair enough the F1 would loose its place. Are you argueing that a w12, quad turbo is better than a NA V12?...i hope not. Back to the W12, Quad turbo, does bugatti employ amateur engine designers?...i mean a W12 on its own is big, but with 4 fans to help!!...i mean a Nissan Skyline can dishout 1000bhp with just 2 turbos and its an inline 4 i think (inline something anyway)..Same goes for the koenigsegg, becuase the cc8s cudnt beat the maca f1 then went back and gave it more power. Simply to beat the F1, stupid....supercars should not be common!...wacking turbos on v8 etc is common. Createing a v12 that creates 600+bhp shows engineering brilliance!

PS..Malka..lovly link!...
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Old 11-24-2004, 03:20 PM   #55
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Kirium, your points of view are great and I have to say this is one of the best discussions on these cars that I have read. Often times these can get ridiculous but this has gone on for (phew!) 4 pages and it's still a mature discussion.

On to Murray's interview... I think I would react the same way if the person conducting the interview tossed out bonehead questions like those. It seems like this John Barker guy prepared for his interview by looking up "McLaren F1" on his closest bulletin board. He got it all wrong! I don't blame GM for being short with the guy. He's been answering the same questions over and over again since Ferrari released the F50 in 1995(?). I especially love GM's answer to the 5th question about embracing superchargers.

As for this debate about what the best supercar is, GM has one vision of what a sportscar/supercar should NOT be. And the F1 is thus far the best example of that vision. No one has to agree to it or accept it as the end-all-be-all of supercar design and engineering. But he has found enough like-minded people to sell 64 examples of his version of "the best supercar". And from reading that interview I don't get the impression that he is worried about another car(s) knocking the F1 off the top of the supercar pedestal. He said it best: "We’ve had our 10 year reign, take the crown."

I have to disagree with you on the F1 vs Veyron debate. I think they are very much alike. I think the F1 road car was designed to be just as much of a autobahn cruiser as the Veyron (comfy seats, quiet operation, luggage space, CD changer, good A/C). But the execution is quite different. You've noted the interior on the Veyron. The F1 has a full leather and carpet interior too. But the F1 catered to a more sporting clientele than the Veyron will.

I guess to sum up my point, any supercar will have an enormous task of creating, developing, selling, and supporting a car that will better the F1 in all categories (fun, driveability, speed, reliability, comfort, design, build quality, etc). In my humble opinion, it's going to have to be a manufacturer with deep pockets and a strong belief in the seeing the project through to the end. Ferrari certainly could; Porsche could; maybe BMW if they had the interest.

Drew

P.S. -- thinking of all of this really put it into perspective for me that McLaren built only 64 road cars... Such a tiny amount for a fairly long production run. This is one instance where I think I would rather have had more road cars than racecars.
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Old 11-24-2004, 04:38 PM   #56
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Personally I reckon the difference between the F1 and Veyron can be summed up like this:

GM set out to create the ultimate sportscar whereas Bugatti plan to create the ultimate supercar.

The debating about what constitutes a supercar on here is kind of ironic since GM has never used the word when describing the F1. He hated the word for all the negative associations with it.

A sportscar according to GM should be light in mass and controls, have a bit of roll to let you feel what the car is doing in corners and have a generous and responsive engine. It should be packaged well and have racecar DNA without being a roadgoing version of one.

A supercar on the other hand must be ludicrously powerful, tremendously exclusive (by being incredibly difficult to get hold of and be extraordinarily expensive once you have) and so exotically beautiful that it snaps knicker elastic at 100 paces.

Of course sportscars are ordinarily designed to a cost. The F1 shows what can happen if you don't...
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Old 11-25-2004, 09:11 AM   #57
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Gordon Murray letter in Evo to Koenigsegg?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Peloton25
See, now in my opinion, you're just reading too far into Gordon's comments and trying to give it a meaning that was not intended.

To me it seems he is saying that F/I just doesn't provide a pure driving experience, not that the technology is crap. Obviously he wouldn't have thought it was crap through the years of Formula One engines that utilized it.

>8^)
ER
I don't think I'm reading too far into GM's comments... perhaps just over-simplifying them...

GM attacks the K'segg really for no reason... He says you almost can't count cars like that. I'm not sure why, but he expresses his disapproval for supercharging, which the CC8S and CCR use, so perhaps that's the reason. But that seems a bit hipocritical since the SLR is supercharged and AMG uses bi-turbos. I can understand his resentment toward the Veyron, simply on it's concept, but still don't think it's warranted...

His disregard for the CC is even less warranted. It's a well rounded sports car, that according to some articles (EVO) is one of the best on earth, but doesn't have a NA V10 or V12. That doesn't make it a car you can't count. It has had a very long gestation period, but that only allows their test drivers (ex-racer Rickard Rydell?) to hone the car so it is as good as it can be. It's acknowledged by EVO and TopGear as the most serious threat to the F1 now.
Perhaps GM would have a different opinion of it now, or at least take it more seriously now that it's being tested and driven and people are wanting to buy it (I heard it found 1 buyer here in Australia when shown at the Australian Motor Show in Sydney last month). that interview is about 2 years old now, and the Keonigsegg has come quite a long way.
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Old 11-25-2004, 10:04 AM   #58
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Re: Gordon Murray letter in Evo to Koenigsegg?

Quote:
Originally Posted by drewwtms
Kirium, your points of view are great and I have to say this is one of the best discussions on these cars that I have read. Often times these can get ridiculous but this has gone on for (phew!) 4 pages and it's still a mature discussion.
I have to say that I expected many more irrational comments and a more hostile reception to my opinions than have been put forward by others here, and it's such a refreshing change to most auto forums I frequent, even tho we've gone around in circles a couple of times. Most have responded with well-rounded and well researched responses based on honest opinions.

Quote:
It seems like this John Barker guy prepared for his interview by looking up "McLaren F1" on his closest bulletin board. He got it all wrong! I don't blame GM for being short with the guy. He's been answering the same questions over and over again since Ferrari released the F50 in 1995(?).
I'd give John Barker a bit more credit than that. He's the motoring editor of one of the more respected performance car magazines around, and one which focuses on the thrill of driving. EVO has quite a record of holding and promoting track days often in association with Caterham, Lotus and other brands under their EVOactive program. Their writers appear to be car enthusiasts who happen to write about cars as opposed to writers who just write about cars. I can't say I have anywhere near the same level of respect for Australia's local performance car mag MOTOR. Like I said, i'd give him a bit more credit. (But not too much, he's still a journo... up there with lawyers... )

Quote:
As for this debate about what the best supercar is, GM has one vision of what a sportscar/supercar should NOT be. And the F1 is thus far the best example of that vision. No one has to agree to it or accept it as the end-all-be-all of supercar design and engineering.
By stating what a sportscar/supercar should not be, he almost eliminates and discredits anything that doesn't fit his criteria which he built the F1 by though, thus leaving us with what a sportscar/supercar should be, and this is his formula, and anything else doesn't really count. That's essentially what doesn't sit right with me about his comments. He's essentially defined how such a car should and shouldn't be built. If someone had told him how a supercar should and shouldn't be built back in the late 80's, he would have rejected them instantly. He looked to alternatives and succeeded with it. now he's telling people that his formula is the best way, and the next supercar can only beat the F1 is they merely advance those principles, and now he's bagging alternative thinking in the area of making power. Some people might consider that a bit hipocritical also..

Quote:
I don't get the impression that he is worried about another car(s) knocking the F1 off the top of the supercar pedestal. He said it best: "We’ve had our 10 year reign, take the crown."
If it were a car that were in line with his concept of what makes a pure drivers car (everything he put into the F1), I agree, I'm sure he'd be accepting of that. However, if the K'segg CCR were to topple it, I think he'd be quite displeased and unaccepting, mainly due to it's forced induction, which doesn't fit his concept of a supercar.

Quote:
I guess to sum up my point, any supercar will have an enormous task of creating, developing, selling, and supporting a car that will better the F1 in all categories (fun, driveability, speed, reliability, comfort, design, build quality, etc). In my humble opinion, it's going to have to be a manufacturer with deep pockets and a strong belief in the seeing the project through to the end. Ferrari certainly could; Porsche could; maybe BMW if they had the interest.
Ferrari certainly could, if they weren't so obsessed with creating a car which tries a bit too hard to make the link of Formula 1 to road car, like the F50 and Enzo are, IMHO. Porsche I think have tried their best with the C-GT, and fallen a bit short. I'm not sure they can come up with a better engine than racing derived one they've got in that car. Despite how much I'd love to see a BMW supercar (Does anyone remember the Nazca C2 and M12? http://images.google.com.au/images?q...ff&sa=N&tab=wi) I don't think the Quandt family have the commitment to create a car along the same uncompromised theory as the F1. We know they can certainly create the worlds best engines, but to create an entirely new, uncompromised sportscar/supercar in the F1 mould is far too much risk for such a global company... Having said that, Chrysler are having a shot at it with the ME Four-Twelve... http://www.roadandtrack.com/article....rticle_id=1167Perhaps BMW will one day too... We can only hope...
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Old 02-02-2005, 12:08 PM   #59
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Re: Gordon Murray letter in Evo to Koenigsegg?

Maybe it's just me and what will probably be considered as my blasphemous views but i dont think GM wrote the definition of "supercar." IMO the F1 is still one of the top supercars but i dont think it will be long before tests prove it to no longer be #1. He says supercharging is better than turbocharging? Why is that? Is weight the factor because it cant be the efficiency of the system. As for saying that a NA motor is more efficient than a turbo motor (maybe i was reading that wrong), that is completly false. Turbocharged engines regularly can produce over 100% efficiency if setup right. As for driving experience, a turbo car that is setup correctly wont just put a smile on your face or have serious "lag" but it will be a smooth transition into higher power with boost. I like the F1 and i respect GM for producing a car that has held it's reign as the #1 supercar for over 10 years but i think it's days are numbered. It will however be remembered forever as a milestone to performance and functionality. Lets hope the next reigning champion has the same success.

William
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Old 02-02-2005, 05:22 PM   #60
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Re: Re: Gordon Murray letter in Evo to Koenigsegg?

Quote:
Originally Posted by will69camaro
Maybe it's just me and what will probably be considered as my blasphemous views but i dont think GM wrote the definition of "supercar."
Neither did he to be fair - he hates the word.
Quote:
Originally Posted by will69camaro
As for saying that a NA motor is more efficient than a turbo motor (maybe i was reading that wrong), that is completly false. Turbocharged engines regularly can produce over 100% efficiency if setup right.
That's just plain wrong - basic laws of thermodynamics state that you cannot have greater than 100% efficiency.

Quote:
Originally Posted by will69camaro
As for driving experience, a turbo car that is setup correctly wont just put a smile on your face or have serious "lag" but it will be a smooth transition into higher power with boost.
But a well tuned NA engine won't have any transitionary stage in the rev range.
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