Has Lamborghini ever made a car that had actual technical merit as a racecar?
I'm general, supercars are vastly overpriced for what you get. You can easily crush most for a fraction of the price with a dedicated track car. But simultaneously, no supercars are remotely practical on the road, and in fact are not even fun to drive on the street because of speed limits.
Some supercars have been a good investment, such as the Mclaren F1, but the majority depreciate immediately.
Modern modern ones are a bit cramped but are as practical as any other sports car (that is, not particularly.)
There is a Lamborghini series (super trofeo) but not much beyond that. I rarely even see them at track days.
Quattro drive (or whatever it is called now) is not really awesome for road racing. It causes too much understeer.
That said, I heard the Huracan is much better than previous cars.
(I own and have tracked a McLaren but I am thinking of swapping it out for something more practical for track use. It is less fun than racing my 1992 Spec Miata, for example...)
They are terrible investments. I buy cars after they have fallen way down the depreciation curve.
What's funny about supercars is you rarely see them on the track. It's the folks out there with their spec Miatas having all the fun. I've passed more 100k+ Vipers, M5s and Ferraris on track day in a first-gen 130bhp Miata than I can remember.
Working on a Chump car (http://www.chumpcar.com/) build with my brothers now. I've met people racing in that series who've owned every supercar imaginable. But when it's a beater with some safety equipment, what do you have to lose :)
Nice. There's something about showing up people with vastly deeper pockets than ability...
I recall finally passing a GSXR1000 on my lowly CBR250RR about a decade ago on Philip Island, last few corners. He repassed me on the pit straight but then I got him back by nailing T1 and stayed there. That felt pretty sweet. (I'm a tall / heavy guy compared to the 250, so suspension etc was not proper; the GPR70 tyres were just about the only good thing)
The CBR250RR is one of the best-sounding bikes ever made. Gotta love screaming about at 20K RPM. I wish I could see one in person; sadly, they’re not too popular in the UK.
Cheers, yes they did sound amazing. :-) I went on and got myself a GSXR600 a year or so after, got it tuned for my weight, and the difference that made the handling was simply astounding. Sadly I was made to sell it... Not a great bike for the road at all, but I have some very fond memories of taking it to the track where it belonged.
Years ago I raced in the Ducati Desmodue series in the UK. Class B, aircooled, twin cylinder Supersport and Monster 600 bikes, putting out around 50-55bhp. Once you had those things set up properly and on a twistier circuit, like Cadwell Park or even Brands Indy to an extent, sliding past bigger bikes through the corners was a lot of fun. Even if they passed again on the straight, one could often pass back under brakes into the corner. Good times.
I raced a Chump car back in 2011, and it was the best racing I've had in my admittedly limited experience. If you're not going for first place but just to enjoy some competition endurance racing, it's great value for money and a good time.
Ooh, awesome. I've never run Chump Car but I've got about 10 24 Hours of LeMons races under my belt. There IS something about driving a not-yours (or at least not-expensive) car wheel-to-wheel vs a trackday.
If you take your car on the track there's a very high probability it will get seriously fucked up. Unless you're cruising around casually you're going to be taking chances, and when you take chances you'll eventually go off the road, grind into something, or worse.
Fixing your Porsche is expensive. Fixing your Ferrari is stupidly expensive.
If you want to have fun on the track take out a car you can afford to wreck. A Porsche with a track setup you can really let loose on is going to be way more fun than a Ferrari you need to be gentle with.
There aren't many people that have enough money to not worry about wrecking their Ferrari, and fewer still that have time to bomb around on a track in one.
Plus, if you run your tuned up track Porsche into the wall and it's a write-off, hey, shit happens. If you do that with a Bugatti or an Enzo you're just being a dick. Those sorts of cars are rare and deserve some respect.
There's also another factor: After-market modifications for cars more commonly made are easier to source. You can mod an Audi or Porsche easily, it just takes money, but doing the same with a Ferrari is significantly more complicated, you'll probably need to have a lot of things custom fabricated.
That's why people need to work up from karts to more and more powerful cars. By the time you're ready for a 911 you shouldn't be wondering, you should know.
Its hard to beat a 911 gt3 cup. Well, the miata might but it fares better than any supercar. They are affordable and don't cost that much to operate. Its a Porsche so the thing is reliable. Its hard to top the spec miata if you are doing club racing. I think the Porsche can offer somehow similar enjoyment while being faster.
If you are feeling lucky then try out rallying. A miata will also work but its quite a different experience.
That sounds about right. I don't think its that expensive given the car itself. I've personally turned wrenches on street cars with higher maintenance costs than that (due to big turbos and pump gas). Still way more than a Miata, though. :)
If you're a company making Veblen goods, the last thing you want is to make something that's worth all that money. Then it's not a Veblen good any more!
If you're after performance, a shifter cart, well... especially a super kart will beat 99% of anything Ferrari and Lamborghini have produced, on almost any track. Superkarts even hold the outright lap records on some tracks, over F1 cars even.
Shifter carts are reasonably cheap and they're a hell of a lot of fun and adrenaline. If you truly like racing, that's where a lot of the F1 guys start their careers. Not the safest thing in the world, though. Spec Miata is way more tame, relaxed and safer.
Aha, interesting, I'd never heard of Veblen goods before this. I'd also never thought about it in this manner before, making it a better product would make it actually worth the money, and hence less desirable.
One thing to understand is that a lot of new wealth is not in Western nations and some, regardless of where they live, have access to where they can play with their toys. Throw in exclusivity which some makers exploit by having limited run versions.
While the prices are silly, one can ask why would anyone pay more than 20k for car when that can buy you safety and comfort for four? Just like my impulse purchases can be a certain amount that is fine for me but extravagant for some and cheap by others.
Exactly. Luxury good manufacturers have recognized this trend a while ago, that the nouveau riche from non-western countries have a tendency to purchase all these toys in a me-too competition with their counterparts in the west.
Its a shame since I would expect them to have better sense than that to have accumulated that much wealth. Then again, its their money so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I guess that's true; one can't really tell or moralize about other people's money. They are free to do as they wish; I agree with that on a personal level.
But if we think of wealth more than an abstract thing and more as a societal contract, then things do change a little bit. Wealth is society's way of abstracting the capacity to work. You can keep all your wealth in gold coins in a big building but without a society that values it, its really not worth that much. Wealth is a claim on other people's work, other people being members of a society. So, we have the situation that only the combination of wealth and society is actually worth anything.
If that is the case, it is in the interest of the wealthy, to foster a society in which 1) More work can be obtained in total and 2) More work can be obtained for less money. The former leads to philanthropy (betterment of society), and the latter leads to lobbying against taxation for the rich and other measures to redistribute income; since when more wealth is held by few, the few can make the many work for less (more labor than capital).
But wait, there is another dimension: if you think about the wealthy in Germany buying an expensive BMW, it still doesn't seem as bad, since the wealth is still within German society. But when you have wealthy Chinese buying a German car, then the wealth which was accumulated by the labor of the Chinese society is now going to the German society.
I will make an assumption you've never ridden even decently-engined BMW 3 series (or 1,2,4) or anything better in terms of handling? suddenly the act of driving moves from i-have-to-get-to-that-place into wow-lets-do-more! (all within speed limits).
there is certainly some tipping point for this and after it's not worth it, and poorly-handling muscle cars leave me uninterested, but it works, it can be joy on normal roads and on track even pure adrenalin.
A carbon fiber supercar that impresses me (and is actually raced and wins ~ see last week's Le Mans) is the new Ford GT. You even have to submit a video interview because Ford wants actual enthusiasts, not "collectors", to purchase them from the limited run.
One of my wealthier passengers was closing up the family's winter home in north Scottsdale. I asked my usual questions, and eventually he told me how the garage at the pickup location had one of the million-dollar Porsche 911's, and that their Ford GT was a much better car...
In Colorado, the Hummer H1 was completely worthless in the winter. His 4wd suburban hybrid was great in the snow.
The H1 was worthless because of the very small intersection between what the people who sped'd the H1 wanted it to do and what most people driving on the road in the snow want it to do. Once you're off the road the H1 should be pretty awesome in the snow since you won't even be snow-plowing with the A-arms until there's more than 18" of snow. I'm not trying to be a H1/m998 fanboy but it does what it was meant to do very well (and that's about all it does very well)
I wonder what 911 that was, the only million dollar ones that come to mind are either a rare racing version from the 70s or something like a 911GT1. As a daily driver a Ford GT would be way better than either, as a race car on a track I would argue otherwise.
It might've been a 918, or a carrera GT. This was 2 or 3 years ago. I just remember that it was an "absurdly expensive" model, where a regular 911 was cheap in comparison.
Edit: The difference between the ford and the Porsche was that you felt every road crack in the Porsche, such that it was barely driveable.
> in fact are not even fun to drive on the street because of speed limits
Well, race replica sportbikes are not fun to ride on the street for the same reason.
However, get out of the city and seek the lesser-known winding roads up in the hills, and suddenly the bike is a ton of fun. I guess for some folks the supercar is the same (not for me, though - for me the fun ends as soon as you put me in a closed cage on 4 wheels, no idea why).
Source: I've a sportbike and I play with it once in a while.
Oh, I was specifically asking about Ducati since that's what was mentioned.
The replica bike you mentioned is a huge disappointment for one reason: "Europe and Australia are offered a 160 hp version, the American market gets roughly 100 hp and in Japan, it's an even paltrier 70 hp." Unless you live in Europe, you have to spend another $10,000+ to get it back up to spec.
Since most of us are not and never will be very rich, the fact that a not-rich person can buy and ride a motorcycle which will easily smoke the pants off any car but the sort of supercar only a very rich person could buy is, in fact, noticeable.
Don't disregard arguably the best supercar of them all: the early 1990s Acura NSX. ;) Reliable, gorgeous, powerful, thrilling, and depending on when you bought it over the last couple decades ... A decent investment even.
Well yeah but since Audi bought them they actually have decent guts as opposed to just being really pretty show ponies.
The Aventador was an R8 with a really good bodykit and there was NOTHING bad about that, it was the first Lambo in a long time that could actually take a corner at speed.
Not really.. the first generation R8 was offered with a choice of V8 and V10 engines versus aventador which comes with a v12 option only.
Nor does the R8 have the carbon fiber tub or the suspension of the aventador.
Do enthusiast car engines last longer than track car engines? Because I remember hearing that true track race car engines last a very short amount of time before they need work done. Maybe because they live at higher rpms?
One number I've heard cited is that one track mile equals three street miles. So an engine that you might expect to last perhaps 300k miles before it was a bit tired would only last 100k track miles.
Actual racecar engines are rebuilt very frequently (same for dirtbike motors, etc).
"sports cars" (Miata, Corvette, whatever) are going to be like any other street car in terms of longevity, but something like a Ferrari or Lamborghini will probably need some work before it reaches a few hundred thousand miles.
>One number I've heard cited is that one track mile equals three street miles
That is most certainly wrong, depending on how you drive on the street, unless you're the guy/lady in the 5,000lb SUV flooring it and slamming on the breaks between every stop light then maybe. I have some experience with track cars, even a long time ago was involved in Allison Legacy racing--those cars use an engine straight out of a Mazda truck. I can tell you, when they sit all week and you do nothing but race them on weekends, they don't put out even 1/3 of the miles they would as a well-maintained road car.
>Sports cars" (Miata, Corvette, whatever) are going to be like any other street car in terms of longevity
Miata's are reasonably reliable, but Corvettes most certainly are not. Ferraris and Lambgorghinis used to spend more time in the shop than on the road, but they've gotten better. A lot of enthusiasts credit the Acura NSX with that.
Plenty of plumbers and electricians get 300k+ out of 80s and 90s E-series vans driving exactly how you described. Cops and taxis get 300k+ out of the frequently driving like you described.
You can also have a pretty crapped up engine well before 100k if you only ever drive to bingo, church and the grocery store.
Once you start looking at the details rules of thumb like $roadmiles = $trackmiles * $x usually can't be applied to complex systems with lots of variables with reasonable precision no matter how much time you spend arguing about x
Yea, it depends. All my argument was saying is that even in the most reliable, conservative race cars I've had experience with, which used a Mazda truck engine which was pretty much stock, they were not lasting anywhere near 1/3 miles. 1/30 of the miles would put you at 10,000 miles which is probably closer.
Any raspy, high revving motor that needs RPMs to make power is going to last even less. Start modding and using race-purpose engines and it's even less still.
Edit: are you sure a lot of police cars are getting 300k in that kind of driving? I don't think all cops drive like that most of the time. I'm very skeptical of that claim you're making. I'd imagine most cop cars are retired around 100k which is what a quick Google search shows some agreement for.
To provide a counter point a friend raced a worked 2L ford escort which was rebuilt every year or 2 and trailered to and from the track. It was not driven often. It was 200bhp. That poor little motor was wringing every bit of power it could, and the bills let you know it.
Yea, exactly. My point was, if even the close-to-stock Mazda truck motor is not lasting long (in terms of miles, not race seasons), everything else is only going to be worse.
Particular driving styles. For example, if you have a boxer engine with a turbo and floor it for the duration of a long banked turn, centrifugal force can prevent the oil from circulating through the engine and it can get damaged.
There are gotcha's like this which complicate the equation.
operating hours below normal operating temp. That's why cop cars, taxis, industrial engines and other stuff that doesn't get turned off very often frequently lasts well beyond 200k (or the equivalent number of operating hours) wheras something used for a 5min drive to work and back every day will be worn out in much less time.
This is assuming all other variables are consistent. Changing your oil every 10k vs 5k certainly won't help things.
Then you're not the target market. There's a fundamental difference between a "premium" product (which is objectively better) and a "luxury" product (which is intangibly better) - people spend money to get the halo effect imparted on supercars, might be vain or illogical, but it's a pretty common human trait. Also, I've driven track and super cars and would say supercars on the road can still be fun, although having also had a go in a single seater (FRenault), would say that wipes the floor with them all on a track.
See that's my point: you can buy a track car for a fraction of the price that is objectively more bleeding edge. The track car has faster lap times, which is the reason one is buying the car. You can argue it's the fastest car that also has an air conditioning unit, I suppose.
Hell, I saw someone running a '94 F1 open-wheel car around COTA last month. He said he purchased it for less than 100k. No supercars would come close to those track times. Probably more fun to drive, as well.
Make no mistake, F1 and automotive racing is high tech goodness. Supercars are just overpriced.
At least in the US, supercars are street legal (McLaren F1 being an exceptional exception) and the only way to do it is crash test. For every model you see on the street 3 had to be sacrificed.
Not if you import it under the Show and Display act, then you only need to meet emissions requirements. Supposedly Bill Gates helped get the act passed so he could import his Porsche 959.
I would predict that this manufacture method, with many small cut-up pieces of carbon, is going to produce relatively weak parts in comparison to equivalent twill prepreg, thus you'll need more carbon to reach the same strength and it will be heavier.
Carbon is good in tension because you're pulling a whole bunch of atomically perfect lightweight strings, but when you have chopped up fragments like this you're really only casting resin with reinforced mashed bits. Additionally, in real carbon parts you orientate the fabrics to get perfect tension/compression in the direction of the loads, or use multiple orientations bonded together for good all-round strength, but this manufacture method would have randomly oriented fiber directions.
It's just marketing. The buyers know about as much materials science as the average office worker and will not have a clue about what the real applications of carbon fiber are like. They simply associate carbon fiber with 'modern, good, expensive, strong'.
Most likely they would not be able to appreciate your comment.
At a sailmaker where I worked in NL we worked on laying carbon fiber manually and laminating it to make sails that had almost no stretch for race applications, your comment is spot on and exactly why this whole exercise is pointless. It's all about getting long strands of fiber along stress lines and to make them denser where the stress is highest, a pour like described in the article negates a whole pile of the advantages that carbon fiber has. But it's a lot more efficient than laying long fibers and it still uses the same material so it will be sold.
> As the metal is shaped during the forging process, its internal grain deforms to follow the general shape of the part. As a result, the grain is continuous throughout the part, giving rise to a piece with improved strength characteristics
This process seems to be just casting. Why do they call it forging?
"Carbon fiber everything" is a really great marketing strategy for a veblen good, primarily because CF is light and looks sexy, but I'm not sure it's a huge technical achievement. If you look at full-CF road bike frames in 2002, 2003 or so they were a super premium priced hand crafted thing. Now they are a commodity item from China and Taiwan that you can buy for $600 if you're building your own road bike. Example: "Chinarello" (Pinarello):
I still ride a cheap mail-order monocoque road bike from ... 2004? The knockoffs were available pretty much from the outset as they generally were just used molds or copies, all made in the same factory. Still rides beautifully and I've never seen the need to 'upgrade'.
I'm general, supercars are vastly overpriced for what you get. You can easily crush most for a fraction of the price with a dedicated track car. But simultaneously, no supercars are remotely practical on the road, and in fact are not even fun to drive on the street because of speed limits.
Some supercars have been a good investment, such as the Mclaren F1, but the majority depreciate immediately.
I don't really see the point.