Does technology kill the passion?

[Moppie]

Does haveing so much hp in a car that it needs driver aids to stay on the road kill what it means to "drive".

Does it kill the passion of being totally in control of a car, just your wits and skill working with or against a car to make it go.

[Black Lotus]

Technology as a crutch for bad or medicocre drivers can kill the driving fun for good to excellent drivers.
A driver might ask himself if it was me, or the computer that got the car around that last corner.
What fun is it if you can floorboard the throttle in a 500 HP car in a slow corner, and using the traction control, the car will simply accelerate away as fast as IT is able.
My V8 Esprit may be the last high performance car that I buy. Don't care if it's performance has been eclipsed (by a long ways now), it is still a raw manly-man car driving experience, where I am held accountable to only myself for the cars performance (or lack of).

[Moppie]

Originally Posted by Black Lotus

My V8 Esprit may be the last high performance car that I buy. Don't care if it's performance has been eclipsed (by a long ways now), it is still a raw manly-man car driving experience, where I am held accountable to only myself for the cars performance (or lack of).

Didn't you used to have a S4 Turbo?
The V8s are awesome cars, and one of the last true pure sports cars with huge power and no driver aids.



I've been watching a lot of Top Gear on TV and Autocar and Fithgear videos on youTube.
They all make such a big deal about the amount of technology going into sports cars and super cars in order to make them faster.

The new Ferrari 599 GTO is an excellent example.
Stupidly fast, but according to Mr Clarkson, almost totally undrivable with the driving aids turned off.

The whole car is just a very fast video game with G forces for rich old men and pop stars who want the image with out the experience.

[Black Lotus]

No S4.
Currently have an Esprit '89 turbo 4 cyl (intercooled, S300 head, etc., with lots of S4 body plastic), and a 2003 Esprit V8.
The broken piggy bank avatar gives you an idea of the maintenance requirements

[Moppie]

Originally Posted by Black Lotus

No S4.
Currently have an Esprit '89 turbo 4 cyl (intercooled, S300 head, etc., with lots of S4 body plastic), and a 2003 Esprit V8.
The broken piggy bank avatar gives you an idea of the maintenance requirements

I remember now. Not many with both, most people I know have gone from a turbo to the V8, and not kept the older turbo.


Both awesome drivers cars.

[speediva]

That is half the reason why out of the 3 vehicles I own (2 cars and a sportbike) that all 3 of them are manual transmissions. I HATE HATE HATE how inefficient 95% of automatic transmissions are. Just let me drive, darn it!

[Black Lotus]

Originally Posted by speediva

That is half the reason why out of the 3 vehicles I own (2 cars and a sportbike) that all 3 of them are manual transmissions. I HATE HATE HATE how inefficient 95% of automatic transmissions are. Just let me drive, darn it!

+1
I inherited a car with an automatic, and it drives me freaking crazy. I have never bought a car with an automatic. The rest of the car is pretty good, actually, after a Koni shock injection and a bigger rear bar. But the tranny is the #1 sore spot.

[mike@af]

I believe the topic poses an extremely loaded questions. What exactly do we limit the discussion of technology to? Driving aids in itself, poses very loaded questions because driving aids in street cars are completely different than supercars, which are completely different than race cars.

From another perspective, we can look at what technology offers in motorsports performance, such as telemetry, data engineering, CFD analysis, and so on.

My experience is particularly in the field of motorsports, not so much stuff you would see on the street. I personally use technology to fuel my passion as I develop parts in 3D and put them through Computation Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Finite Element Analysis (FEA) tests. With CFD and FEA I am able to develop parts for my personal racecar that offer a competitive advantage over others cars in my class.

Whenever the car is complete, I will be able use datalogging and telemetry to verify my tests, alter my driving line, and so on which will in turn make me a better engineer and driver. By continually learning, my passion continually grows.

The minute I stop learning, is the minute I die.

[Moppie]

They are very loaded questions, and open to lots of interpretation and debate, however you get to the heart of the issue here:

Originally Posted by GTmike400

Whenever the car is complete, I will be able use datalogging and telemetry to verify my tests, alter my driving line, and so on which will in turn make me a better engineer and driver. By continually learning, my passion continually grows.

At which point do you stop being the driver of the car and the technology takes over?
Do you take a line through a corner because your skill and experience tells you to, or because some telemetry tells you to?

The technology exists now to have a driver-less race car (would be an awesome race series). So if your letting the technology tell you how to drive, then why not let it take over completely?