Ferrari Mailing List: Re: MGU-K & MGU-H

[Fellippe Galletta (fellippe.galletta]

Erik said,

"I think all of us car guys really want something bespoke, but very few of us have the $5-6 mil to really do it."

Well even Glickenhaus couldn't have a truly custom Ferrari when he did his P4/5. It essentially was a rebodied Enzo with I believe the same powertrain.

Imagine how nice a 360 Challenge Stradale could be with a manual transmission and without power steering? 

FG

On Thu, Mar 5, 2015 at 10:51 AM, Erik Nielsen <judge4re [at] gmail.com> wrote:

Doug raises a good point (as always).

I’ve been looking at the cars from the 80’s and 90s recently and most of the crazy expensive ones in the day were at best in the low 300 hp range, the new stuff is like driving a video game with all of the drivers aids.  

I remember drinking in Yokahama with the chief engineer for the GT-R (well I remember a good portion of the evening) and they were offering me one of the first to be built for the USA (he’d been to my house before and hung out in the garage saying I had too many Ferraris, but that’s a story for another time).  They said I could have a special car built if I wanted to that wouldn’t be like the launch car so we started talking about what could be done.  Ti exhaust (Japan market), sure.  Different wheels, sure, we have some prototypes we could send you.  Manual gear box?  Nielsen-san, are you crazy?  A button on the dash to turn off the driver aids?  Nielsen-san, do you want to kill yourself?  I kind of gathered that they had figured out that the car was basically unstable to drive without all of the aids, maybe learning the lesson of the 930 Turbo.

I think all of us car guys really want something bespoke, but very few of us have the $5-6 mil to really do it.

On Mar 5, 2015, at 9:19 AM, Doug & Terri <dnt [at] dock.net> wrote:

-rick notes “That's pretty cool! If '80s era 911s had that, their back ends wouldn't pass their front ends quite as often!”

 

Picture this – it’s 1974 and Porsche is going to jerry rig their 917-30 Can Am McLaren killer turbo induction system into a 911 street car.  The car will be cleverly disguised with an RSR rear wing on the back and an air dam  beard on the front.  It will be simply known as a “Turbo.”  Selling price - $25,000 ($110,000 - 2015 $’s), more than twice the price of a regular 911.  They will allegedly build ONLY 2,500 of these rockets.  The know-it-alls in the club clucked their collective tongues and all agreed – Porsche will never sell all of them.

 

OK – so much for the design stats.  Enter Human Foible 101.  WHO can afford a Porsche in these times let alone one costing twice as much as the regular “Down Hill Racer” chick magnet 911 model?  Why Doctors, Lawyers, Butchers, Bakers, and Candlestick makers.  A fine group of which some like to have the biggest, newest, and flashiest car on the block but of whom only a handful are car enthusiasts – the rest have never been subjected to ANY type of performance vehicle.

 

This remaining group sets several new records: 1) $25,000 is chump change; and, 2) the most single car accident history in history.  All the Turbo’s are snapped up and most altercations occur half way thru a turn.  Heh heh

 

When I was filming auto racing in the 60’s I got to know a fair number of race track administrative folks on the outside who I delt with to let me in a race track inside.  Flash forward to 1980 and Porsche has developed their competition killer cars in line with FIA Group 4 & 5 rules – the Porsche 934 and 935’s.  I visit Riverside International Raceway as a civilian on a pre-race Friday of the Trans Am Series race and cash in a few “lemie go inside” chips.  I meet up with an old buddy, Grady Clay.  A conservative and trust worthy driver of fast Group 4/5 cars and owner of Rennenhaus in Denver, CO.  I asked Grady how he liked these 934/5 rockets.  He didn’t.  He stated while the cars were killer fast, they were a handful to drive:  Come into a turn, balance the car, WAIT until you can SEE the next turn, squeeze on the gas and explode to the next turn, put both feet on brakes, balance the car, wait until you see the next turn, squeeze on the gas and explode to the next turn.  Twenty plus laps of that isn’t fun he reported.  Such is such.

 

Well –rick, thanks for adding another engineering chapter to my propulsion library.  I am going to file this information right next to my Comprex Supercharger info.

 

Onward

 

DOUG

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