Type IV

I do think that it is a combo of weight to power ratio and of course balance.   Once you leave that sweet spot, then the car may be flingable but recovering from a fling might just make it continue to  go around hence a lot of cars become more cruisers even if in the hands of a good driver, if you can find one  there may be an ability to fling a heavier car.

In an emergency situation in winter weather, some cars I owned allowed me much more control at highway speed to recover from total loss of control and the handbrake, (hand) allowed me to recover and even spin the car a full 180 once ....then again... to fully recover and in the direction of initial travel... and live to tell about it.

I disagree with you, Ed.  A Cayman is a proper sports car. I owned one. Have you owned or driven one?

It is ALSO an excellent GT car. I wish cars weighed 2000 pounds. Heck, I own a 1500 pound Spyder with 200 hp. I think I know what a sports car is. But today, they don't. We have cars with crush cages and stiff frames to combat NVH(noise, vibration, and harshness). We have stability control, ABS, a dozen airbags, seatbelt tensioners, and technology and controls that all add one thing: weight. All driven by customer desires, safety, regulation, marketing(gee whiz bang!) and insurance companies.

300 hp in a 930 was too much because of three things: turbo lag, lift-off throttle oversteer, and a rear weight bias that Porsche didn't figure out how to accommodate. The last two are really co-mingled into the same issue. I guess add "technology of the time" to that list.

Here's the thing, Ed. I read. Just like you. But also I have firsthand experience. I think that might count for something.

I've driven a LONG list of cars. Proper sports cars, GTs, etc. A LOT of them in anger and on track, too. If you want a list, I'll list them.

Mike, I'd absolutely LOVE to drive that turbo 911 you built. And you're absolutely right that there is a "feel" thing going on.

But get one thing straight: a 917 is a RACECAR, not a sports car.

@IaM-Ray posted:

In an emergency situation in winter weather, some cars I owned allowed me much more control at highway speed to recover from total loss of control and the handbrake, (hand) allowed me to recover and even spin the car a full 180 once ....then again... to fully recover and in the direction of initial travel... and live to tell about it.

Whoa. Talk about quick thinking and good instincts!

@Michael Pickett posted:

Whoa. Talk about quick thinking and good instincts!

Exactly. Try driving in the rain at the Glen and pushing it a little too far. This past June it was pretty wet. The rain and grip was changing every lap. I'm amazed we didn't have a red flag or a pace car for every lap.

As soon as you start to spin the procedure is to LOCK the wheels. This keeps you going whatever direction you already are, but makes it easy for the guys coming behind you to anticipate where you're going.

SO I'm driving around by myself as I already spun and lost the field. I get to turn 9, which is a 90 degree-ish left coming out of the Boot and rejoining the short course(Nascar course). It is the only turn at Watkins that is not banked. Some people call it the "off-camber" turn, which it's not. It is merely not banked like the rest. It is totally flat as a pancake. Water doesn't have anywhere to go. It doesn't pool, but it doesn't run off either.

Anyway, it is pouring through the entire "boot" end of the track. The car starts to go round, and I lock the wheels and brace for the crash into the Armco. As I pass 180 degrees, I can see nobody is behind me on track. OK, great. I get to a full 360 and I'm still on the brakes and on track, haven't hit anything. So I release the brakes, pop it in 3rd, and release the clutch and simply carry on.

I think they call that a spin and go. I was happy to be able to finish, drive back to my garage, and park it in one piece that day.

Sheer luck .  For me….  not for Danny he trained for it …

@IaM-Ray posted:

Sheer luck .  For me….  not for Danny he trained for it …

Sheer luck for me sometimes too!

You reminded me of a 360 spin I had on the street a while back. It was 1982 or 1983, I'm coming home from work on a snowy afternoon. I'm driving a 1974 Chevy Vega GT(it did have posi) with snow tires on the rear.

There is a long mild curve down a gradual hill. The kind that when you're doing 55(I was NOT, probably 35-40) if you let off the gas you maintain speed or maybe go a couple mph faster at the bottom. No need to touch the brakes type of hill.

The problem is that you cross the county line about a third of the way down the hill. I worked in Orange County, but lived in neighboring Ulster County. The roads were plowed and salted properly in Orange County.

They were decidedly NOT taken care of properly in Ulster County. My Vega's back end came somewhat slowly around. I froze and did nothing, as I had no experience at all with a spin. I had done absolutely NOTHING to initiate it. I had also no knowledge of what to do. So like I said, I froze. And apparently, so had the road!

I did about 270 degrees and stayed on the road. Thankfully, nobody else was traveling in either direction. I started the stalled car, and continued on at about 20-25 mph, lugging it in 3rd gear(it was a stick 4 speed). Made it home OK, checked shorts, OK!

I was very lucky and very clueless that day.

@DannyP posted:

300 hp in a 930 was too much because of three things: turbo lag, lift-off throttle oversteer, and a rear weight bias that Porsche didn't figure out how to accommodate. The last two are really co-mingled into the same issue. I guess add "technology of the time" to that list..

Mike, I'd absolutely LOVE to drive that turbo 911 you built. And you're absolutely right that there is a "feel" thing going on.

But get one thing straight: a 917 is a RACECAR, not a sports car.

I smiled when I read the 930 thoughts, Danny. I settled on the K27 turbo when I built the engine just because it was a step up from the original K26, but not as big and laggy as the turbo used in the 935 (although I built the engine to stay together up to 800 hp).

I just didn't have the welding skills to handle a twin-turbo exhaust, so it was a compromise between lots of lag followed by a Saturn 5 ignition and tons of lag followed by a small nuclear explosion behind the driver's seat.

Over the years, I learned that timing and anticipation was the key. You punch it 1-3 seconds before you need to take off.  You ONLY get 3.3 liters of NA engine power until the fun begins. Gear choice counts: the higher you keep the revs before you punch, the shorter the lag before Godzilla kicks the rear of the car.

Concerning controlling the rear end, first step is to choose 10" wide rims and really sticky tires. Regardless of the tires, plan on the rear tires to start smoking at 4000 rpm, so feather the throttle, but as you note: DON'T LIFT!!!

The cool part about the rear end handling is you can put major downward pressure by applying throttle. The only time in 8 years of thrashing the car that the rear end felt loose was when I was on a light coating of snow in a corner while giving it throttle (I-95 on-ramp). I feathered the go pedal and it settled right down.

Virtually all of the time, you could plant the rear end by just giving it throttle. The devil was in knowing how much.

It handled corners totally flat and since it didn't have any fancy power steering, braking control, etc., you could feel everything that was going on with the suspension. Dang, what a car.

I'm a wrench, not a driver. Danny could have mastered that car and made it sing. He might have even convinced me to turn up the boost!

@Michael Pickett posted:

It handled corners totally flat and since it didn't have any fancy power steering, braking control, etc., you could feel everything that was going on with the suspension. Dang, what a car.

I'm a simple man, so I'm still struggling with the summary dismissal of the Viper/Cobra as vehicles worthy of consideration -- unless what is really being conveyed is a distaste for American cars and the American men who buy them.

Yes -- the way in which both cars went about their business was quintessentially American, but I mean that in the best possible way. Neither was fussy or delicate or laden with a bunch of frippery. Both demanded skill from their driver. If that skill was lacking, the cars didn't have a lot of mercy. They weren't about making a driver look better than he was. The Cobra was 1960s Shelby, the Viper was the latterday version of Carroll's vision.

The Viper was not unlike another V10 brute that came out about the same time, although the other one is Jacob and this one is Esau. The weird part is how we (on this site) love one and hate the other, even though they are like twins separated at birth -- two sides of the same coin.  Somehow, we've come to the point of worshiping the Porsche Carrera GT and despising the Dodge Viper SRT10. One required that the operator be a driver, and the other was... um... too much. Yeah! That's the ticket! The Viper was "too much" and the Carrera GT was a driver's car, although I would imagine the distinction would be lost on Paul Walker.

The Viper was a front-engined 2-seat V10 race-car for the street. Versions of it won at both Daytona and LeMans. It had ABS because it needed to have ABS to be legal, but there was none of the whizbangery nonsense that we all claim we don't like in modern automobiles. Compared to a modern PDK-equipped German car, it was almost breathtakingly analog. No electronic turbos, no vector braking, no electronic googaws to enhance one's abilities. It's been panned for being "crude" by the same guys looking for an "unfiltered" sportscar experience. That seems really odd to me.

Was it a "sportscar"? Probably not, since it weighed 3400 lbs and had 500 hp and was competing with supercars (with about the same weight and about the same power) costing 4x as much at the time. But I'd proffer that if weight is the prime consideration: given modern crash standards, there are no legitimate European sportscars left at all. The only cars that kinda' meet the criteria are Japanese: the MX5 and the BRZ/GR86. These cars (rightly or wrongly) are panned for being underpowered. Either way, an MX5 weighs 2300+ lbs and a BRZ is 500 lbs heavier.

Danny was working in big, round numbers, but he's got a 1500 lb car with 200 hp and ideal weight distribution. That's 7-1/2 hp for every pound of curb weight. I can tell you from experience, that this is nearly ideal for mountain road work. It's brutal and strong. If a 2000 lb car were similar, it would need 266 hp. For a 2500 lb car, that number is 333 hp (which is pretty close to stock 15 y/o Ford Coyote 5.0 power). We're a long, long way from that with most Speedsters.

I'm not sure what the magic number is supposed to be, but if a Cobra can be within 500 lbs of a speedster, I'm lost why it's thought of as the inferior machine. It's got a modern front end, can be had with IRS in the back, and has 2-3x the power under the hood. The weight distribution is not ideal, but neither is it a speedster.

Is all that needed? Probably not -- but I'm not inclined to be disrespectful of something that can spank my pride-n-joy hard.  I realize I'm just an overgrown hicktown white-trash wannabe boy-racer who happened to be shown how to rub two nickels together, but a broadsword was a pretty effective weapon.

As I said, I like driving a slow car fast, and I like fighting the fight with Mighty Mouse, even if I do look like a Shriner in a clown car. But the fight I'm fighting better be on tight mountain roads and not out on the 2-lane blacktops that constitute most of America, or my little 180-200 hp (ish) 2.3L four-banger is going to be beaten up, have its lunch money taken away, and beaten up again. More power would make it more better, assuming I could get a 230 hp lawnmower engine to hold together long enough to even get to the mountains on something that doesn't have a winch or hook attached.

They're particular cars for particular functions. A more powerful car has a wider bandwidth. Your mileage may vary.

If I gave the impression that I “summarily dismissed” the Cobra and/or Viper, I apologize. In just about everything in life, “Less is more” is my mantra. In motorcycles, I always preferred the 250 to the 500, the 750 vs the 1,000, or the 900 vs the 11-1200. I have a 3 Cyl, 1L car. I prefer 912s to 911s.

I got no beef with a 500-600hp Cobra, it’s just that it’s 300-350hp more than I would, or could, ever use.

Viper V-10?  Not my thing.  Why?  It seems like it goes with an unbuttoned shirt and gold chains.  Never liked Mustangs for the same reason.  Until Ford created the flat-plane crank Voodoo and put it in the GT350.   I bought a GT350R in January of 2020, and got to drive one on the Charlotte Roval for a couple days.  Then Covid happened, which produced an unexpected opportunity.  The President shut down the economy and Highway 241, a toll road close to my house, was close to bare.  The only other cars were some Lambos, Ferarris, Porsches, my doctor's Vette, and my friend's McLaren.  A couple days later folks started driving again, and I sold the car a year later.  It is, and probably always will be my favorite car that I owned.

It's funny, I always loved the Viper but thought it was a little too much car for me. I grew up on GM iron and worked my way down from a Wildcat 445, a Camaro 350, all the way to a Vega GT (and yes, @DannyP, I spun the Vega down an on-ramp in the snow, too). After that with short sidetracks into an Econoline 150 and a Ford Exploder, I've mostly had Japanese and German cars with 4 bangers or 6s.

The Viper seemed like a fire breather right out of the box, and as I've said before, I'm more of a wrench than a driver. Building the 911 the way I wanted was just as satisfying as building the speedster. The very same technical challenges with slightly different driving skills needed. Plus, I bought the 911 for $14K and it was an easy entry fee. Just like the speedster, I ended up spending a LOT more money turning it into the car I wanted.

The main downside: you can pull into any gas station or car gathering in a speedster and people don't automatically assume that you're a butthead. It's much harder to pull that off in a 911 turbo painted in speed yellow...

I got a ride in a Viper back in the 90's at a charity event at Laguna Seca Raceway in Monterey, Ca. For $100 you could take 3 hot laps around the track with a driver. That ride convinced me that the Vipers were a serious car. Up until that time the fastest car I had ever been in was my friends GTX Belvedere with a 426 Hemi in it. That car was all grunt and very quick for its weight. We topped out one night at 150 mph when he buried his tach and let off. I got to do the Bob Bondurant School of Performance Driving 3 different time years later. I got to drive Z06's, Roush Mustangs, Cadillac CTS, and a Formula "A" with slicks. All on the track in Arizona in all kinds of weather. The first time it was raining and I thought they would suspend the class. They said," now you will learn how to drive" and had the class take the traction control off our cars. We learned about balance and how not to upset the car and how to stay in control through trail braking and heal and toe down shifting while till going fast. Each class was 3 days long and I learned a lot. The most fun was the class I took on Executive Protection and Evasion. We were taught how to get away from the bad guys if you had to. We were sent out one at a time to get chased around a closed course track by aggressors in Roush prepared sedans. These guy would be hidden around the track so you never knew when they would start or stop chasing you. When they did start they were shooting at you with paintball guns as they came after you. Your job was to evade them and not get hit for 30 minutes. You were to use all the skills you were taught in the class including reverse 180's, ramming and how to not get spun out and a whole lot more. Yes we got to ram another car as part of the class. I remember Bob telling us about driving the Cobra's when he first started. He said they were a handful but learned the only way to drive them was to get them sideways and don't lift. He said you need to drive them with the gas pedal. I got to see that first hand one day while hauling around the track. I was in a Roush Mustang really hanging it out around a big sweeper when I saw another car approach me on the outside. It was Bob drifting around me with his dog in his lap !! He just waved as he went by ............ he was in his 80's at the time.

Hope you enjoyed the drift .......

@Butcher Boy posted:

I  was in a Roush Mustang really hanging it out around a big sweeper when I saw another car approach me on the outside. It was Bob drifting around me with his dog in his lap !! He just waved as he went by ............ he was in his 80's at the time.

Hope you enjoyed the drift .......

I got to do a couple of MC riding courses in 2002. One was Freddie Spencer's school at LVMS. Part of that was getting a ride with Freddie on his bike, which was a current Superbike spec RC51 with a dual seat. That was, how you say, “interesting.” I don’t wanna say scared, but it was quite likely the most intense 4 minutes of my entire life.  

At some point in the 3 days, Freddie did the same thing. Sawing the log as hard as I could, Freddie passes on the outside, ONE HANDED, and throws a thumbs up with his free hand.  

"I was in a Roush Mustang really hanging it out around a big sweeper when I saw another car approach me on the outside. It was Bob drifting around me with his dog in his lap !! He just waved as he went by ............ he was in his 80's at the time.

Hope you enjoyed the drift ......."

Oh hell yes.  That's hilarious.

If I had to have a cobra I’d get one of these.

@550 Phil while prices have really come down on those recently, aren’t they still $150k+?

IMHO, if I were to do a Bimmer of that era, it would be the E85/86 between 2006-08. While having some luxury appointments, they were still raw enough to be a sports car. Especially the M roadster or M coupe.

Wow. I just looked. They are really starting to go up again.
3 years ago I bought a pristine 2000 M Roadster with 25k original miles for $25k. Lady ran a red light and wasted it. Now that was a nice car.

@550 Phil posted:

If I had to have a cobra I’d get one of these.

Really, that over a Cobra? Phil, when is the last time you have been to an eye doctor?

That was one of the nicest BMW coops that they made. I’m not really a fan of the Z3 or four they should’ve stuck with number one.

@LI-Rick posted:

Really, that over a Cobra? Phil, when is the last time you have been to an eye doctor?

I don't like 4-wheeled BMWs as a rule, but I do like that one. The Z3 and Z4 are fugly.

Oh Danny, Danny...  You've cut me deeply.

@Lane Anderson posted:

Oh Danny, Danny...  You've cut me deeply.

Lane, BMWs are cool and all. I'll just never get one, they aren't for me. More for you to buy?

I really do like the one Phil posted. I also like the M1 mid-engine coupe.

@DannyP posted:

I don't like 4-wheeled BMWs as a rule, but I do like that one. The Z3 and Z4 are fugly.

On the whole, I agree. But sometimes, ugly is beautiful.

When the Z3 M Coupe came out, R&T said it was the best M car of the entire line. The only one that could compare with the original Motorsports division hand built M3’s.

In related news:

https://bringatrailer.com/list...-m3-convertible-2-2/

@LI-Rick posted:

Really, that over a Cobra? Phil, when is the last time you have been to an eye doctor?

I’m with Phil. IMO, the Z8 is the most beautiful roadster since the XKE. When they first came out, I was getting my F650 serviced at BMW of San Francisco when the rolled a black/red one into the showroom.

I owned 2 Z Coupes. I thought they were beautiful. I had a 1999 M coupe. It was a brute. M Coupes could only be had with the 5 speed stick. Got tired of driving a stick to work so I bought a 2001 Z3 Coupe with the less powerful 225 hp engine and the automatic. It was silver with a red leather interior. I’ve owned lots of daily drivers but the Z3 Coupe sits at the top of my daily driver list. I loved that car. Probably why I bought the 2000 M Roadster as a fun car a few years back.

I have an imaginary internet friend that’s driven/raced Porsches for 60+ years. Worked as an auto broker and still has 30-40 cars. BMWs, Porsches, Mercedes.
He described the Z experience as a Jaguar XKE + Speedster.

FYI, the Z8 is not a sports car(according to one person on here). It weighs 3494 pounds. It also has almost 400 hp and is a V8. A 4.9 liter with 369 ft. lbs. Is it simply too much(if it was American-made)? Or is it OK because of the European origin?

.

Whether or not the Z8 is a 'real' sports car, I think it's been strangely ignored by most of the smart money and will someday be rediscovered. If something as underwhelming as a Mercedes 190SL can rise from the ranks of the undiscovered and unloved to command six figures, the Z8 should be a shoe-in for future stardom.

Developed more as a styling exercise than anything else, it has remarkably good performance (according to some, more than comparable to the contemporary Ferrari 360).

At the time, I think it was put down as more of an over-styled GT car than a 'serious' fire breather.

I think it's the nicest-looking BMW ever made, including the 507 (which inspired it) or the M1.

We all have an opinion. That's mine.

.

10 years ago, you couldn’t give a Z3 away. 4-cyl, 6-cyl, whatever. I had serious desire until I sat in one, and felt like I was riding a horse. Everybody sits on them, not in them. Apes like me looks like I’m riding one of those coin-operated mini-carnival rides they used to set up outside supermarkets.

To my eye, the Z3 looks better than a Z8, which looks OK enough (as long as nobody is sitting on/in them), although nowhere near as good as a ND MX5. I’ll be the odd man out and say that the M coupe has always looked like the Lotus Europa of the aughts. I realize form follows function, but those cars look like they fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down.

It’s a big statement, but the “flame-surface” Z4s look even worse. I think they’re a HUGE stylistic swing/miss, like a little-leaguer in his first at-bat facing a kid that can throw a breaking ball. The first gen Panamera (which looked like a humpback whale) was equally bad. They might be nearly perfect, but I’ll never know. They’re too strange for me and I like some pretty strange automobiles.

I still think it’s weird that these cars get the love they do, but it’s gotta be because they’re from the Fatherland. “Sainted German Engineer” worship and all that.

Ah, we'll have to agree to disagree about the 1st gen Z4s.  I love the coupes.

@Lane Anderson posted:

Ah, we'll have to agree to disagree about the 1st gen Z4s.  I love the coupes.

I'm good with that. Somebody had to love the ugly ones, or they wouldn't have sold any of them.

I nearly bought a Z3 M Coupe before I decided on the NB Miata that was destined for autocrossing. I liked the performance but it didn't ring my chimes for some reason.

Looking over the years, I'd say the Z4 M Coupe hits the styling and performance marks for me. It doesn't look like the shoe from the Monopoly game and doesn't have the funny rear end of the Z8.

Really, I stopped paying close attention after the 2002. Now get off of my lawn.

Perhaps I’m just used to owning the bastard products of auto manufacturers. Starting with my 944S2 and then jumping in to a Z4.  As an aside, I passed on a mint 912 in Irish green in favor for the Z4-which was the same price at the time. Oops.
I was never one for the Z3, especially the coupe (which I often hear referenced as the clown shoe). The 1st gen z4 seemed to hit the sweet spot between raw sports car with a bit of luxury.  Richard Hammond once said if the Boxster was a surgical scalpel , then the Z4 is a cleaver. Afterward BMW seemed to steer directly into the path of luxury. I don’t even want to know what happened with the latest version of the Z4; but that goes with the current state of BMW design in general (and we thought Chris Bangle ruined BMW designs).

@Kevin - Bay Area posted:

I don’t even want to know what happened with the latest version of the Z4; but that goes with the current state of BMW design in general (and we thought Chris Bangle ruined BMW designs).

I owned a couple of 1990s BMWs in the early aughts (a 3-series and a 5-series). They were magnificent machines. Chris Bangle ruined them, and subsequent designs have gotten progressively more portly.

They lost me for good when they started piping engine noise into the interior through the stereo.

On my wish list are: a very big garage, 944 & 928 Porsches, 1950 Buick fastback, 1960 Austin Healey 3000 and a E-type Jag.

Ah, another lover of the postwar GM fastbacks.  Make mine a '49 Cadillac Series 62 fastback please.

I woke up at 03:00 this morning, and took another look at Z3s on fleabay. They're still pretty darned cheap for what they are. I still REALLY want to fit in one.

.

In high school, in the mid-‘60s, we used to grade teachers’ coolness based on the cars they parked in the faculty lot.

At the undisputed top was the vice principal, also a sharp dresser, with a black ‘61 ‘Vette. Next was the Spanish teacher, with a white, ‘57 Thunderbird (with the porthole!).

But my personal favorite was the teacher with the ‘49 Buick Sedanette. In 1965, any 15-year-old car was considered an antique, but this stylish dude defiantly motored on. In retrospect, maybe he was the one who inspired me to keep my 2002 for 23 years.

BMW 2002 73-74  Was owned by one of my profs I really liked it. Had a ride once in the car. I often wondered how it would be to own one.

I bought a 1987 535 and kept it for 10 years. I was probably one of my favourite cars that I should have kept… when either at 2002 or a 535 from these years come up on the trading sites I often think of purchasing it.  
on the other hand chasing rust is no fun,