F1 vs F50
maartenvanthek
01-26-2004, 02:32 PM
yeahh i found an article on the CAR website, it's a head to head mclaren f1 vs. ferrari f50 confrontation! enjoy!:)
McLaren F1 and Ferrari F50
People have at various times claimed each is the last-word supercar, but they're too different to shuffle into an order. Which wins, McLaren or Ferrari? Which smells stronger - music or arithmetic? A pointless enquiry, as tediously misdirected as the Blur v Oasis niggling we endured a couple of years ago. But that doesn't mean they aren't fascinating to compare.
Sure, the F1 and F50 have a lot in common. Both are designed to be complete driver's cars - faster, lairier, purer than your run-of-the-mill Testarossas and Diablos. In many ways they make less of a statement than traditional supercars; a Diablo owner gets a lot of satisfaction from driving a car that's very large, very loud and utterly bonkers-looking. The MacLaren, especially, is absolutely not about being bonkers: it was shaped by the need to be usefully compact, easy to see out of, and aerodynamically clever. Both the F1 and F50 express their purity partly by doing without various 'driver aids' that might come between you and them: anti-lock brakes, traction control, power steering. No luxuries, either, especially in the Ferrari whose windows you wind down yourself to save weight.
Both of these cars start on a button, not a key. Makes firing up feel more special for the owners - so special they can't keep it to themselves. Several of them have been happy to let us have a go. The only proviso is we can't take pictures of the two together (which is one of the reasons we've used a racing McLaren for the photos, the other being that it looks so trouser-wobblingly striking). Neither Ferrari nor McLaren likes comparison tests, and they've made it clear to owners that they won't be pleased if the cars are lent to CAR for that purpose. And when the factories do all the servicing, it's very much in the owners' interests not to cross them.
So what are those starter buttons connected to? The turbo has been given the cold shoulder in both engines; it contaminates the pure response, you see. So both McLaren and Ferrari settled on big, bold, mad, bad, high-tech V12s, six-speed gearboxes, carbonfibre monocoque tubs, and race-style double wishbones with the horizontal spring/damper units. In both, the rear suspensions bolt to the transmissions, which feed the weight back through the engine blocks to the bulkheads. Just like Formula One cars. Famously, the Ferrari motor is derived (though only loosely) from the early-'90s GP V12, as used by one Alain Prost. Despite their light-and-simple philosophies, both have air-con. A luxury? Hardly. Without it you'd simply barbecue in the heat soaking off these ferocious engines.
Wrapping all that, both cars are shot through with drop-dead obsessional details, exotic component choices and orbitally high pieces of on cost. It all adds up to cars that, though preposterously expensive, do represent some sort of meaningful value equation. Look around them for long enough and you can discern the material destination of every one of these hundreds of thousands of pounds sterling. The McLaren is the more flawless jewel. It's not only that many bits are almost unimaginably precious, but that every part seems flawless. But then, to be mundane, it does cost twice as much.
Think for a minute that the Ferrari's pedals have exquisite cast and machined aluminium pads allen-bolted to their stems. But then look at the McLaren's: the F1's accelerator is a fabrication of six ultra-light titanium components. Of course, there are such no-compromise absolutes all over these cars: naked carbonfibre around their cabins and engine bays not for decoration but because that's the flesh and bones of them and because it's the most appropriate stuff for the job. Ball-jointed linkages for throttles and suspensions alike. Telemetry systems that allow the respective factories to interrogate a car that breaks down, wherever it is in the world. On the McLaren's BMW V12, a set of exhaust headers that cost more to make than an entire engine in a V12 BMW 7-series. On the Ferrari, a race-style fuel cell that has to be replaced every 10 years at a cost of £12,000.
Approaching the F50-F1 pairing, the differences between the two come tumbling in. The F50's carbonfibre, Kevlar and Nomex outer skin was designed by Pininfarina and is clearly part of the Ferrari lineage, but beautiful it isn't. The shape is all about downforce, about cross-wind stability, getting cold air in, getting hot air out. There are some lovely bits, though: at the nose, the Ferrari badge sits between the radiator outlet tracts on a dart-shaped hump echoing a grand prix car's nosecone. At the back, if the sunlight's in the right direction, the engine, gearbox and suspension are lit from above through the Perspex cover, and when you drive behind the F50 you can see them clearly through the mesh between the tail-lights.
The McLaren's shape is like no other supercar before. Gordon Murray laid out the brief, and Peter Stevens designed the shape to fit. It's lean and spare, a thing of rare and subtle beauty. The aerodynamics played a part in the shape, but cleverly, it's hidden. Look how clean are the nose and tail sections, how free of obvious spoilers: the McLaren is sucked to the road rather than pressed onto it. The shape also had to fit three people in echelon formation, to mould space for their baggage in the side panniers below the outer pair's seats, to have that dorsal air-intake, and it had to shrink-wrap over the mechanicals. Most important, it had to be compact - vital, that, to make it as usable as possible on real roads. But also, a smaller car has lower frontal area and it's lighter. Weight: another obsession of the McLaren designers, hence the use of exotic materials even for ordinary components and the famously lightweight custom CD hi-fi. The F50, butt-bare though it might appear, weighs eight percent more. A Diablo, by the way, is all but 40 percent heavier.
To get into the Ferrari, you pull on an apparently feeble plastic catch. No point in worrying about locking it, for if someone wanted to get in they'd climb in over the top. No-one, by the way, uses an F50 with its hardtop on: the racket from the bolted-in engine is intolerable when you're in a confined space with it. The F50 door opens conventionally, and then it's the usual supercar method of taking the long bum-first fall into the seat then swinging your legs the energetic arc over the sills. If you think that's a bit short on dignity, check out the breathless gymnastics needed to get behind the McLaren wheel. It's never going to be easy getting first into the car's left-hand side and then over the carbonfibre rail that fences off the central footwell.
In the F50, your seat is a relatively simple but deeply-contoured affair with flying-buttress side bolsters and tall walls either side of your thighs. Its cradle is lightweight carbonfibre, but of course the McLaren's is lighter, thinner again.
If the Ferrari's cabin has an aesthetic, it's a functional one. The carbonfibre weave is beautifully aligned, glinting out from behind a liquid-gloss resin. On top of the dash, it's black Alcantara to dampen reflections; the binnacle is simple, the vents plain humble. On the carbon tub's floor, no carpet, but fitted industrial-type dimpled rubber mats. What more could you want? The instruments are blue-lit jobs that show up only when the ignition's on, like in a Lexus. The speedo, which runs to a metric 225mph, and 10,000rpm rev-counter are huge dials, the best bar-graphs. In sunlight, they're too dim to read easily. The driving position is low, and there's a lot of car either side of you. But you can see out clearly because the screen pillars are thin and set a long way back - the wraparound effect partly designed to prevent the air that gusts out of the radiators from broiling your face.
Carpet and more leather mean the McLaren's inside is a little more opulently clothed, but not a lot. There are more controls, though: electric windows, completely integrated hi-fi and so on. Stalks are from a BMW, which means they look and feel like quality items. It's the quality of everything in here that overwhelms almost as much as the odd seating position. The instrument faces have laboratory-finely-calibrated markings. The control knobs have precision-engineered actions and clear, simple markings, a sense of being very important. They look like the control panels you saw on your school trip around a nuclear power station.
It isn't especially odd, sitting so far forward and centrally, nor getting used to the division of controls: handbrake in the left-hand rail along with the hi-fi knobs, gearlever on your right with the heating and air-con. But when there are passengers, it feels a bit rum finding their disembodied voices coming from behind obliquely, like parrots on your shoulders.
Right, lets press those buttons. It turns our they breathe life into a pair of remarkably different engines. The Ferrari's isn't as hard-nosed as the race engine it stems from, thanks to the substitution of chains for gears in the cam drive, and iron for alloy in the block. Twin-path induction and exhaust systems plump out the torque curve, too. At idle, it's smooth, loud V12 musical, and in concert with Ferrari's lightest-ever gear change, it's an easy car to get gently rolling. Around 2000rpm, a rattly mechanical clatter cuts in, just like a restrained racer, but you can rid yourself of that by revving some more. If you've been gasping at the 520bhp headline figure, however, you might be given pause when you have your first full-throttle moment. The F50, you see, won't seem that fast. Not if you're using, say, 'only' 4500rpm. But never forget the F50, titanium rods and five-valve heads and all, will run to 8500.
Use all those revs and suddenly the F50 becomes absurdly fast, viciously fast, and altogether wonderfully fast. The torque is a self-fulfilling prophecy, multiplying as the engine's scream gets higher. It's always a loud engine, but when it's flinging itself forward in the highest quarters, it really does sound like a hard-edged race V12. When it's going about that sort of business, you have to be quick on the draw with the gearlever: almost as soon as you've hooked up a slot and pressed the throttle, you'll be homing in on the red line and preparing to grab the next of the close-stacked six gears.
As if the McLaren's giant 6.1-litre swept volume weren't enough to guarantee monster torque, BMW's double-VANOS (variation of inlet and exhaust cam timing) helps too. This makes the F1 most drastic gatherer of speed in history. No need to change down, no need to check the tacho (or your ears) for proximity to the powerband. It's not a powerband, it's a power prairie, broad and fertile and unfathomable. Mind you, it does get stronger higher up too. Your limit's at 7500, and the work it does on the way there is enough to give a convincing impression of unlimited high-speed acceleration in the way that even an F50 can't match.
Yet the F1's is a remarkably refined engine too. Cruising, it hums into the background. But to floor the throttle is to wind the Marshall-amps to 11. When that noise comes it isn't uncultured: it's just vast and irresistible and Wagnerian. Mr Ferrari's Boxer/Testarossa flat-12, the roadgoing sonic benchmark these past two decades, is second-division now.
The McLaren has so much urge underfoot, so much of the time, that you never flex your right foot without thinking very carefully about the consequences. The Ferrari is less brutally rapid unless you've with malice aforethought arranged to be in a big-rev gear. This makes a difference when you're accelerating out of a corner.
Because they generate colossal grip and cost a hill of money, you know that if you do get it wrong on either of these cars the crash will be very fast and financially problematic. That's intimidating. And yet, the Ferrari is not in itself an intimidating car to push hard through corners. It's all about feel, this car, feel and control. The steering isn't darty, but it's deliciously precise. Load the F50 up and its scoots around a bend, stable and supernaturally free of roll. And agile like no other Ferrari, even the 'little' ones. The front track's wider than the rear, which promotes stabilising understeer. Not a lot, but enough to build your confidence. But what makes the F50 so joyous is the ease with which it'll throttle-balance. You really can, given the right tarmac - a tight track, or an upland A-road with 60mph corners and uncluttered visibility - drive it like a giant kart.
The McLaren, given its savage torque, is a piece of cake to unseat at the back, too, and again it's set up to understeer a little at first, so you can neutralise it as you feel ready. The steering is heavier that the Ferrari's, higher-geared and especially weighty as you use lock on corners and build speed. Like an early 205GTI's, really. But it also tells you more that the F50's, so when you're on the go it's easy to forgive. The F1 rolls a little more that the F50, but its grip feels more impregnable more of the time. Unless you use that right pedal, in which case you're going to have to be very fast to catch it, so racing drivers tell us. On that same A-road, we'll be staying inside the McLaren's downforce-multiplied limits. It's the Ferrari that invites you to play with it more because, aside from its steering, it tells you more about what's a-happening, and it happens more progressively.
The (non-ABS) brakes on both cars are just fabulous, eye-poppingly strong but so 'connected' that if the surface gets dusty or damp you just feather the pressure a little to regain grip. And because they're so precise, you're barely conscious of doing it.
The McLaren's suspension is more civilised. Yes, it's firm. Both cars are firm, as thy have to be to have such damping control when they're flying. But the McLaren's front suspension is mounted on special subframes that pivot in carefully controlled dimensions. When the front wheel hits a small bump, the wheel mass is allowed to move backwards, to cushion the shock, but the tyre patch doesn't move, so the steering stays precise. The Ferrari has none of that: solid spherical joints are used throughout the suspension, but even that doesn't make it too harsh. Long wishbones exert lots of damper travel, so the usual stiction is less of a problem. Whatever, both cars have a decent ride.
But the Ferrari runs low to the road and scrapes its underbelly at times, and it makes a lot of tyre racket. It's not a car for poor surfaces, or for cruising. Loud, hot and tiring. You can't park it because you can't lock it, and it has no music. Inasmuch as you'd ever feel comfortable about leaving such a capital asset in a public place, it is possible to park and lock an F1, and it has more ground clearance, and it'll go up the motorway comfortably to the racetrack you've hired or the upland roads you're intent on demolishing. There's tyre noise, but otherwise it's amazingly civilised. It carries luggage too, which the Ferrari can't, and an extra passenger - yet it's the smaller car.
The McLaren is very different from any supercar before: no longer can anyone claim to build the 'ultimate' just by adding more power, more size, more visual drama. The F1 is about brains even more than it's about that astonishing 6.1 litres of brawn. It's the more original car if this pair as well as the more fanatically constructed. And that engine is a towering achievement, unquestionably the greatest road engine ever. The whole vehicle is so awesome, you'd take years to get to the heart of it. Maybe it would never happen. Now does that sound to you like the ultimate challenge, or an unending frustration? The answer to that question, of course, lies not in the McLaren F1 but in your own character.
The Ferrari is very different, more raw, maybe more of a toy, and if not as fast all-out the difference is surely not enough to be decisive. But it's a more understandable car, and some of the time for some people that makes it the more joyous driving experience. But that can't make it the winner. There is no winner here, because it would be daft event to entertain the possibility of there being a loser.
here's (http://www.carmagazine.co.uk/nav?page=car.stories.detail&storyId=570375&storyPage=1) the link
McLaren F1 and Ferrari F50
People have at various times claimed each is the last-word supercar, but they're too different to shuffle into an order. Which wins, McLaren or Ferrari? Which smells stronger - music or arithmetic? A pointless enquiry, as tediously misdirected as the Blur v Oasis niggling we endured a couple of years ago. But that doesn't mean they aren't fascinating to compare.
Sure, the F1 and F50 have a lot in common. Both are designed to be complete driver's cars - faster, lairier, purer than your run-of-the-mill Testarossas and Diablos. In many ways they make less of a statement than traditional supercars; a Diablo owner gets a lot of satisfaction from driving a car that's very large, very loud and utterly bonkers-looking. The MacLaren, especially, is absolutely not about being bonkers: it was shaped by the need to be usefully compact, easy to see out of, and aerodynamically clever. Both the F1 and F50 express their purity partly by doing without various 'driver aids' that might come between you and them: anti-lock brakes, traction control, power steering. No luxuries, either, especially in the Ferrari whose windows you wind down yourself to save weight.
Both of these cars start on a button, not a key. Makes firing up feel more special for the owners - so special they can't keep it to themselves. Several of them have been happy to let us have a go. The only proviso is we can't take pictures of the two together (which is one of the reasons we've used a racing McLaren for the photos, the other being that it looks so trouser-wobblingly striking). Neither Ferrari nor McLaren likes comparison tests, and they've made it clear to owners that they won't be pleased if the cars are lent to CAR for that purpose. And when the factories do all the servicing, it's very much in the owners' interests not to cross them.
So what are those starter buttons connected to? The turbo has been given the cold shoulder in both engines; it contaminates the pure response, you see. So both McLaren and Ferrari settled on big, bold, mad, bad, high-tech V12s, six-speed gearboxes, carbonfibre monocoque tubs, and race-style double wishbones with the horizontal spring/damper units. In both, the rear suspensions bolt to the transmissions, which feed the weight back through the engine blocks to the bulkheads. Just like Formula One cars. Famously, the Ferrari motor is derived (though only loosely) from the early-'90s GP V12, as used by one Alain Prost. Despite their light-and-simple philosophies, both have air-con. A luxury? Hardly. Without it you'd simply barbecue in the heat soaking off these ferocious engines.
Wrapping all that, both cars are shot through with drop-dead obsessional details, exotic component choices and orbitally high pieces of on cost. It all adds up to cars that, though preposterously expensive, do represent some sort of meaningful value equation. Look around them for long enough and you can discern the material destination of every one of these hundreds of thousands of pounds sterling. The McLaren is the more flawless jewel. It's not only that many bits are almost unimaginably precious, but that every part seems flawless. But then, to be mundane, it does cost twice as much.
Think for a minute that the Ferrari's pedals have exquisite cast and machined aluminium pads allen-bolted to their stems. But then look at the McLaren's: the F1's accelerator is a fabrication of six ultra-light titanium components. Of course, there are such no-compromise absolutes all over these cars: naked carbonfibre around their cabins and engine bays not for decoration but because that's the flesh and bones of them and because it's the most appropriate stuff for the job. Ball-jointed linkages for throttles and suspensions alike. Telemetry systems that allow the respective factories to interrogate a car that breaks down, wherever it is in the world. On the McLaren's BMW V12, a set of exhaust headers that cost more to make than an entire engine in a V12 BMW 7-series. On the Ferrari, a race-style fuel cell that has to be replaced every 10 years at a cost of £12,000.
Approaching the F50-F1 pairing, the differences between the two come tumbling in. The F50's carbonfibre, Kevlar and Nomex outer skin was designed by Pininfarina and is clearly part of the Ferrari lineage, but beautiful it isn't. The shape is all about downforce, about cross-wind stability, getting cold air in, getting hot air out. There are some lovely bits, though: at the nose, the Ferrari badge sits between the radiator outlet tracts on a dart-shaped hump echoing a grand prix car's nosecone. At the back, if the sunlight's in the right direction, the engine, gearbox and suspension are lit from above through the Perspex cover, and when you drive behind the F50 you can see them clearly through the mesh between the tail-lights.
The McLaren's shape is like no other supercar before. Gordon Murray laid out the brief, and Peter Stevens designed the shape to fit. It's lean and spare, a thing of rare and subtle beauty. The aerodynamics played a part in the shape, but cleverly, it's hidden. Look how clean are the nose and tail sections, how free of obvious spoilers: the McLaren is sucked to the road rather than pressed onto it. The shape also had to fit three people in echelon formation, to mould space for their baggage in the side panniers below the outer pair's seats, to have that dorsal air-intake, and it had to shrink-wrap over the mechanicals. Most important, it had to be compact - vital, that, to make it as usable as possible on real roads. But also, a smaller car has lower frontal area and it's lighter. Weight: another obsession of the McLaren designers, hence the use of exotic materials even for ordinary components and the famously lightweight custom CD hi-fi. The F50, butt-bare though it might appear, weighs eight percent more. A Diablo, by the way, is all but 40 percent heavier.
To get into the Ferrari, you pull on an apparently feeble plastic catch. No point in worrying about locking it, for if someone wanted to get in they'd climb in over the top. No-one, by the way, uses an F50 with its hardtop on: the racket from the bolted-in engine is intolerable when you're in a confined space with it. The F50 door opens conventionally, and then it's the usual supercar method of taking the long bum-first fall into the seat then swinging your legs the energetic arc over the sills. If you think that's a bit short on dignity, check out the breathless gymnastics needed to get behind the McLaren wheel. It's never going to be easy getting first into the car's left-hand side and then over the carbonfibre rail that fences off the central footwell.
In the F50, your seat is a relatively simple but deeply-contoured affair with flying-buttress side bolsters and tall walls either side of your thighs. Its cradle is lightweight carbonfibre, but of course the McLaren's is lighter, thinner again.
If the Ferrari's cabin has an aesthetic, it's a functional one. The carbonfibre weave is beautifully aligned, glinting out from behind a liquid-gloss resin. On top of the dash, it's black Alcantara to dampen reflections; the binnacle is simple, the vents plain humble. On the carbon tub's floor, no carpet, but fitted industrial-type dimpled rubber mats. What more could you want? The instruments are blue-lit jobs that show up only when the ignition's on, like in a Lexus. The speedo, which runs to a metric 225mph, and 10,000rpm rev-counter are huge dials, the best bar-graphs. In sunlight, they're too dim to read easily. The driving position is low, and there's a lot of car either side of you. But you can see out clearly because the screen pillars are thin and set a long way back - the wraparound effect partly designed to prevent the air that gusts out of the radiators from broiling your face.
Carpet and more leather mean the McLaren's inside is a little more opulently clothed, but not a lot. There are more controls, though: electric windows, completely integrated hi-fi and so on. Stalks are from a BMW, which means they look and feel like quality items. It's the quality of everything in here that overwhelms almost as much as the odd seating position. The instrument faces have laboratory-finely-calibrated markings. The control knobs have precision-engineered actions and clear, simple markings, a sense of being very important. They look like the control panels you saw on your school trip around a nuclear power station.
It isn't especially odd, sitting so far forward and centrally, nor getting used to the division of controls: handbrake in the left-hand rail along with the hi-fi knobs, gearlever on your right with the heating and air-con. But when there are passengers, it feels a bit rum finding their disembodied voices coming from behind obliquely, like parrots on your shoulders.
Right, lets press those buttons. It turns our they breathe life into a pair of remarkably different engines. The Ferrari's isn't as hard-nosed as the race engine it stems from, thanks to the substitution of chains for gears in the cam drive, and iron for alloy in the block. Twin-path induction and exhaust systems plump out the torque curve, too. At idle, it's smooth, loud V12 musical, and in concert with Ferrari's lightest-ever gear change, it's an easy car to get gently rolling. Around 2000rpm, a rattly mechanical clatter cuts in, just like a restrained racer, but you can rid yourself of that by revving some more. If you've been gasping at the 520bhp headline figure, however, you might be given pause when you have your first full-throttle moment. The F50, you see, won't seem that fast. Not if you're using, say, 'only' 4500rpm. But never forget the F50, titanium rods and five-valve heads and all, will run to 8500.
Use all those revs and suddenly the F50 becomes absurdly fast, viciously fast, and altogether wonderfully fast. The torque is a self-fulfilling prophecy, multiplying as the engine's scream gets higher. It's always a loud engine, but when it's flinging itself forward in the highest quarters, it really does sound like a hard-edged race V12. When it's going about that sort of business, you have to be quick on the draw with the gearlever: almost as soon as you've hooked up a slot and pressed the throttle, you'll be homing in on the red line and preparing to grab the next of the close-stacked six gears.
As if the McLaren's giant 6.1-litre swept volume weren't enough to guarantee monster torque, BMW's double-VANOS (variation of inlet and exhaust cam timing) helps too. This makes the F1 most drastic gatherer of speed in history. No need to change down, no need to check the tacho (or your ears) for proximity to the powerband. It's not a powerband, it's a power prairie, broad and fertile and unfathomable. Mind you, it does get stronger higher up too. Your limit's at 7500, and the work it does on the way there is enough to give a convincing impression of unlimited high-speed acceleration in the way that even an F50 can't match.
Yet the F1's is a remarkably refined engine too. Cruising, it hums into the background. But to floor the throttle is to wind the Marshall-amps to 11. When that noise comes it isn't uncultured: it's just vast and irresistible and Wagnerian. Mr Ferrari's Boxer/Testarossa flat-12, the roadgoing sonic benchmark these past two decades, is second-division now.
The McLaren has so much urge underfoot, so much of the time, that you never flex your right foot without thinking very carefully about the consequences. The Ferrari is less brutally rapid unless you've with malice aforethought arranged to be in a big-rev gear. This makes a difference when you're accelerating out of a corner.
Because they generate colossal grip and cost a hill of money, you know that if you do get it wrong on either of these cars the crash will be very fast and financially problematic. That's intimidating. And yet, the Ferrari is not in itself an intimidating car to push hard through corners. It's all about feel, this car, feel and control. The steering isn't darty, but it's deliciously precise. Load the F50 up and its scoots around a bend, stable and supernaturally free of roll. And agile like no other Ferrari, even the 'little' ones. The front track's wider than the rear, which promotes stabilising understeer. Not a lot, but enough to build your confidence. But what makes the F50 so joyous is the ease with which it'll throttle-balance. You really can, given the right tarmac - a tight track, or an upland A-road with 60mph corners and uncluttered visibility - drive it like a giant kart.
The McLaren, given its savage torque, is a piece of cake to unseat at the back, too, and again it's set up to understeer a little at first, so you can neutralise it as you feel ready. The steering is heavier that the Ferrari's, higher-geared and especially weighty as you use lock on corners and build speed. Like an early 205GTI's, really. But it also tells you more that the F50's, so when you're on the go it's easy to forgive. The F1 rolls a little more that the F50, but its grip feels more impregnable more of the time. Unless you use that right pedal, in which case you're going to have to be very fast to catch it, so racing drivers tell us. On that same A-road, we'll be staying inside the McLaren's downforce-multiplied limits. It's the Ferrari that invites you to play with it more because, aside from its steering, it tells you more about what's a-happening, and it happens more progressively.
The (non-ABS) brakes on both cars are just fabulous, eye-poppingly strong but so 'connected' that if the surface gets dusty or damp you just feather the pressure a little to regain grip. And because they're so precise, you're barely conscious of doing it.
The McLaren's suspension is more civilised. Yes, it's firm. Both cars are firm, as thy have to be to have such damping control when they're flying. But the McLaren's front suspension is mounted on special subframes that pivot in carefully controlled dimensions. When the front wheel hits a small bump, the wheel mass is allowed to move backwards, to cushion the shock, but the tyre patch doesn't move, so the steering stays precise. The Ferrari has none of that: solid spherical joints are used throughout the suspension, but even that doesn't make it too harsh. Long wishbones exert lots of damper travel, so the usual stiction is less of a problem. Whatever, both cars have a decent ride.
But the Ferrari runs low to the road and scrapes its underbelly at times, and it makes a lot of tyre racket. It's not a car for poor surfaces, or for cruising. Loud, hot and tiring. You can't park it because you can't lock it, and it has no music. Inasmuch as you'd ever feel comfortable about leaving such a capital asset in a public place, it is possible to park and lock an F1, and it has more ground clearance, and it'll go up the motorway comfortably to the racetrack you've hired or the upland roads you're intent on demolishing. There's tyre noise, but otherwise it's amazingly civilised. It carries luggage too, which the Ferrari can't, and an extra passenger - yet it's the smaller car.
The McLaren is very different from any supercar before: no longer can anyone claim to build the 'ultimate' just by adding more power, more size, more visual drama. The F1 is about brains even more than it's about that astonishing 6.1 litres of brawn. It's the more original car if this pair as well as the more fanatically constructed. And that engine is a towering achievement, unquestionably the greatest road engine ever. The whole vehicle is so awesome, you'd take years to get to the heart of it. Maybe it would never happen. Now does that sound to you like the ultimate challenge, or an unending frustration? The answer to that question, of course, lies not in the McLaren F1 but in your own character.
The Ferrari is very different, more raw, maybe more of a toy, and if not as fast all-out the difference is surely not enough to be decisive. But it's a more understandable car, and some of the time for some people that makes it the more joyous driving experience. But that can't make it the winner. There is no winner here, because it would be daft event to entertain the possibility of there being a loser.
here's (http://www.carmagazine.co.uk/nav?page=car.stories.detail&storyId=570375&storyPage=1) the link
McLaren F1 Guy
01-26-2004, 03:42 PM
Not exactly fair cause the F1 was a GTR, but overall a good article. Nice find
Peloton25
01-26-2004, 04:11 PM
Not exactly fair cause the F1 was a GTR, but overall a good article. Nice find
Actually, I have the magazine this article appears in and it's written from the perspective of F1 road car -vs- Ferrari F50. The photos show a GTR, but check this quote:
Several of them have been happy to let us have a go. The only proviso is we can't take pictures of the two together (which is one of the reasons we've used a racing McLaren for the photos, the other being that it looks so trouser-wobblingly striking). Neither Ferrari nor McLaren likes comparison tests, and they've made it clear to owners that they won't be pleased if the cars are lent to CAR for that purpose. And when the factories do all the servicing, it's very much in the owners' interests not to cross them.
>8^)
ER
Actually, I have the magazine this article appears in and it's written from the perspective of F1 road car -vs- Ferrari F50. The photos show a GTR, but check this quote:
Several of them have been happy to let us have a go. The only proviso is we can't take pictures of the two together (which is one of the reasons we've used a racing McLaren for the photos, the other being that it looks so trouser-wobblingly striking). Neither Ferrari nor McLaren likes comparison tests, and they've made it clear to owners that they won't be pleased if the cars are lent to CAR for that purpose. And when the factories do all the servicing, it's very much in the owners' interests not to cross them.
>8^)
ER
Stratoraptor
01-26-2004, 10:16 PM
no pics of them together?...i guess his guy didnt get the messege :iceslolan ...
http://www.fastcarforum.com/forum/files/mclaren_cars__misc6_.jpg
http://www.fastcarforum.com/forum/files/mclaren_cars__misc6_.jpg
Peloton25
01-26-2004, 11:41 PM
Nice photo - though I do think the McLaren should be the one with it's nose out in front. ;)
That shot comes from this magazine:
http://a4.cpimg.com/image/7E/35/29102974-084e-0190012C-.jpg
Do you have a copy, or did you just find that photo somewhere on the web? :confused:
Oh, and while I like that exterior color, those wheels look to be polished which is not appealing to me. Anyway, it's always nice to see another high mirror car. :thumbsup:
>8^)
ER
That shot comes from this magazine:
http://a4.cpimg.com/image/7E/35/29102974-084e-0190012C-.jpg
Do you have a copy, or did you just find that photo somewhere on the web? :confused:
Oh, and while I like that exterior color, those wheels look to be polished which is not appealing to me. Anyway, it's always nice to see another high mirror car. :thumbsup:
>8^)
ER
Stratoraptor
01-27-2004, 12:23 AM
i found them off a website a while back. it was the photographers website. i simply took screenshots and cropped them. there is one other one that depicts the F1 and F50 along side each other, then theres a couple more of just that F1 during the photoshoot.
Peloton25
01-27-2004, 12:30 AM
Well if you'd like to share the rest of the photos, many of us here would be happy to see them. ;)
>8^)
ER
>8^)
ER
maartenvanthek
01-27-2004, 01:55 AM
is it one of ralph lauren's, that silver car with high mirrors..?
Peloton25
01-27-2004, 02:32 AM
Given the printing location of the magazine and the fact that is a Euro spec F50, I would venture to guess "no". Of course Ralph may have one of his F1's to travel with him, so you never know. In that "Worlds Fastest Cars" video with the Harrods F1 GTR on the cover there is actually a small segment of video showing a silver F1 road car with high mirrors driving. I think there might be a few of them.
>8^)
ER
>8^)
ER
maartenvanthek
01-27-2004, 11:21 AM
could be possible
tvrfreak
01-27-2004, 11:44 AM
maarten, how come there is so much empty space at the bottom of your posts? Do you have blank lines for a signature?
Stratoraptor
01-27-2004, 03:34 PM
maarten, how come there is so much empty space at the bottom of your posts? Do you have blank lines for a signature?
its because he has an avatar.
================================================== ===
Well if you'd like to share the rest of the photos, many of us here would be happy to see them. ;)
>8^)
ER
i dont have a good reason to not share. all i need as the email address of someone that can properly upload them for me...*wink*
.
its because he has an avatar.
================================================== ===
Well if you'd like to share the rest of the photos, many of us here would be happy to see them. ;)
>8^)
ER
i dont have a good reason to not share. all i need as the email address of someone that can properly upload them for me...*wink*
.
mini magic
01-27-2004, 03:43 PM
Stratoraptor
01-29-2004, 11:52 PM
i sent you the pics. thanks for the help.
mini magic
01-30-2004, 02:28 PM
hu? i didn't get them? Can you send them again. I think yahoo moved them to bulk. Sorry, i'll look out for them this time.
Stratoraptor
01-30-2004, 11:42 PM
i sent them again. look in yur email so etime soon.
mini magic
01-31-2004, 12:10 PM
ok. here they are:
http://s90720894.onlinehome.us//McLarenStuff/F50_F1/A.jpg
http://s90720894.onlinehome.us//McLarenStuff/F50_F1/B.jpg
http://s90720894.onlinehome.us//McLarenStuff/F50_F1/C.jpg
http://s90720894.onlinehome.us//McLarenStuff/F50_F1/D.jpg
http://s90720894.onlinehome.us//McLarenStuff/F50_F1/E.jpg
http://s90720894.onlinehome.us//McLarenStuff/F50_F1/F.jpg
http://s90720894.onlinehome.us//McLarenStuff/F50_F1/G.jpg
http://s90720894.onlinehome.us//McLarenStuff/F50_F1/H.jpg
http://s90720894.onlinehome.us//McLarenStuff/F50_F1/A.jpg
http://s90720894.onlinehome.us//McLarenStuff/F50_F1/B.jpg
http://s90720894.onlinehome.us//McLarenStuff/F50_F1/C.jpg
http://s90720894.onlinehome.us//McLarenStuff/F50_F1/D.jpg
http://s90720894.onlinehome.us//McLarenStuff/F50_F1/E.jpg
http://s90720894.onlinehome.us//McLarenStuff/F50_F1/F.jpg
http://s90720894.onlinehome.us//McLarenStuff/F50_F1/G.jpg
http://s90720894.onlinehome.us//McLarenStuff/F50_F1/H.jpg
Peloton25
01-31-2004, 12:56 PM
Wow - those are really sweet! Thanks Stratoraptor and you too Chris. :thumbsup:
Of course they would be much better if they were about 5 times as large, but you know how that goes...
>8^)
ER
Of course they would be much better if they were about 5 times as large, but you know how that goes...
>8^)
ER
McLaren Mike
01-31-2004, 05:33 PM
Very very nice :) Thanks and well done.
-Mike:aus:
-Mike:aus:
mini magic
02-05-2004, 04:35 PM
cabrio92
02-11-2004, 05:57 PM
Hello !
There was a comparison F50 vs F1 in Japan in 1996 or 1997 and I red this test in French in Sport Auto.
Ciao
Phil
There was a comparison F50 vs F1 in Japan in 1996 or 1997 and I red this test in French in Sport Auto.
Ciao
Phil
BMW V12
03-27-2004, 05:21 AM
sorry for bringing up this old thread , but i had the chance to read this particular article and this silver mac is one from GB , because i discovered , that there's a little "GB" badge on the black license plates.....
and it's also mentioned that this "lifestyle" high mirrors are worth 23.000 pounds!!! and this should be the only one with such mirrors , except the one from ron dennis!!!
but we all know , that this can't be true , because we know of #036 and #071..........
this what the article says..... no other facts were mentioned!!!
^_^
and it's also mentioned that this "lifestyle" high mirrors are worth 23.000 pounds!!! and this should be the only one with such mirrors , except the one from ron dennis!!!
but we all know , that this can't be true , because we know of #036 and #071..........
this what the article says..... no other facts were mentioned!!!
^_^
mini magic
03-27-2004, 06:14 PM
there are at least 5 cars with high mirrors
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