classiccars mag March 2004

[drewwtms]

Found this at a Borders bookstore in Boston. It has a yellow 911 and a woman on the cover.

P. 86, "Legendary Engines, BMW S70/2. When McLaren approached BMW for the ultimate engine to power the ultimate road car, the result was a powerplant that exceeded even McLaren's expectations, and so good it won Le Mans - outright."

It's a 4-page analysis of the V12 in the F1 with quotes from Paul Rosche (BMW's engine god). Lots of good information on the materials and technology built into the design of the car. And there's a few pieces of good info that is new to me at least.

I won't type out the whole article but here are some highlights:

"The system is programmed to so that this hugely pwoerful engine is easy to modulate at low speeds, and there's a progressive throttle linkage too. It's an intricate system of rose-jointed rods that means you need a bigger movement at the pedal in the first part of its travel to raise engine speeds, but the response rates increase as you put your
foot down."

"Former BMW boss Bernd Pischetstrieder would have been thankful for [the rear structure]. He crashed an F1 beyond repair but its engine survived and is now kept at BMW's Mobile Tradition museum in Munich."

"To ensure reliability in the 110 engines built (McLaren built 100 F1s) they were each subjected to 500 hours of bench testing."

"Car magazine reported in 1996 on how German stockbroker Dr Thomas Bscher cut his regular commute to Frankfurt stock exchange from 1hr 20min in a Porsche 911 to one hour dead by F1." I wonder what the commute is in the Veyron.

There's also an article on Peter Wheeler and how he saved TVR.

Cheers,

Drew

[tvrfreak]

Some inaccuracies...
The crashed car was repaird.
The article referring to the banker mentions that he cut his commute time by 15 minutes in a Bugatti EB110 SS, not in a McLaren F1.
TVR was saved and resurrected by Peter Wheeler, but it's struggling again. Their cars have gotten more expensive so they are up against more competition for fewer customers, and their quality and customer care have improved only marginally. And the super-expensive T400/T440/Typhon model is very ugly. They spent too much time and money in its development, and I think they have only delivered one customer car.

Still, the 4 pages on the S70 sound interesting. Would it be possible for you to post a scan or the ISBN or at least the author/title?

Thanks!

Edit: Ah, I see that it's the Classic Cars magazine you are talking about. I will pick up a copy.

[drewwtms]

Wow, I'm a little disappointed in this article now. If that stuff is wrong I wonder what else is. Could be that the whole thing was pulled from research on the internet. I wonder if even the Paul Rosche quotes came from a different interview...

One thing about the crashed car, the complete quote says that the engine from the car is on display at BMW's museum and that the engine photgraphed for the article is that engine. Unless the car was repaired with a different engine...

It's a UK magazine so I don't think would have an ISBN number but here goes:

Thoroughbred and classiccars March 2004 issue. The article is called, "Legendary Engines, BMW S70/2" by Glen Waddington (the magazine's Features Editor). There's an ISSN number, 0143-7267.

[McLaren F1 Guy]

I belive this is it?

[mini magic]

i'll scan it later. i wondered who would find it. an interesting read.

[drewwtms]

Originally Posted by McLaren F1 Guy

I belive this is it?

Yup, that's it.