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To: Live2Sail who wrote (160525)10/27/2008 2:26:06 PM
From: John KoligmanRead Replies (1) | Respond to of 306849
 
*OT* Well, Porsche is advertising the 911 with 'Doppelkupplung' as a 28mpg economy car on the highway <ggg>. It's amazing that the V8 Corvette gets mileage similar to that on the highway, I think the secret is that in 6th gear the V8 is turning something like 1500rpm while cruising. As far as performance 'bang for the buck' the Vette is tops with the Nissan a close second. I've read that the blown six in the GT-R puts out way more power than what it's rated for....

Best regards,
John



To: Live2Sail who wrote (160525)10/27/2008 3:31:17 PM
From: Peter VRead Replies (2) | Respond to of 306849
 
OT: track performance sells cars, but has nearly zero to do with real world driving. Once you have been on a track with a skilled driver, you realize how it would be impossible to drive like that on a public roadway.

Track driving is all about finding the line between tire slip and grip, and always involves some amount of slip, which is best to avoid on public roads with curbs and other hard objects to slide into. Plus, with the cars you are describing, the limits are so high that getting the car up to those limits requires very illegal speeds.

Not to say that having a fast, good handling car is not any fun. But comparing similar-performing cars to each other on the basis of track performance may not mean much on public roads. Just because one is a few seconds faster on a road course, or a couple tenths faster in 0-60, does not mean that it's going to be noticeable in day-to-day driving.

One other thing to remember is that the 1/4 mile and 0-60 times in most of the mags are not what you are going to be doing on public roads, because they use a full drag strip launch. I remember how R&T launched the Honda S2000: run the car to its 8000 rpm redline and dump the clutch. In this month's edition they describe the launch of the Subaru Impreza as "brutal but necessary," which most of us won't do to our cars. The C&D "street start" times are a better indicator of real world acceleration, as they time a steady 5 mph to 60 mph, and thus don't involve a full "launch" of the car.