Ferrari Mailing List: Re: Time warp

[Peter Rychel (dino308gt4]

But then you’d lose the rear seats...

 

Jokes aside, I don’t know if it was urban myth, or actual regulation, but all of these types of “sports” cars that had rear seats, wasn’t that so it wouldn’t qualify as a “sports” car and therefore have a lower insurance rate?

 

Peter

 

Sent from Mail for Windows

 

 

From: Lashdeep Singh via Ferrari
Sent: May 27, 2022 7:37 PM
To: PeterGT4
Cc: The FerrariList
Subject: Re: [Ferrari] Time warp

 

So much brain damage when they could have just moved the engine forward 18 inches!!

 

Amazed that not even one nerdy intern showed up for summer break in ‘66 and suggested this…

 

 

On Apr 29, 2022, at 16:40, Doug Anderson <dnt911 [at] outlook.com> wrote:



Thanks Lash – looking back, the 60’s thru the early 70’s were a muscle and sports car time warp.

 

The svelte, super swoopy beautiful CanAm cars were now going so fast they could and did flip over end for end.  The at track answer:  Where’s the pop rivet gun and a few sheets of aluminum to affix chin spoilers, front fender wings and stuff in the back to keep the car on the ground.

 

Even dear old Porsche with their new 1965 911’s had entered into the this ain’t steering right at “the 110 mph twilight zone.” 

 

But Porsche, with no wind tunnels, instead of snapping fender wings and chin spoilers and other do-dads all over the body . . . they hid 50 pounds of cast iron . . . in the front bumper. 

 

The first time I discovered this was when removing the front bumper at the shop for some reason.  Dum de dum . . . and now, from inside the trunk, remove 6 bolts on the two bumper brackets to body . . . and then go to the front of the car . . . now slide the bumper brackets out of their body housings - - - - - and DAMN . . . watch it disappear from your grasp and clatter to the floor.  GEE-sus.  What was THAT?  And there they were – two 25 pounds of cast iron.

 

Sensing this wasn’t a cool German solution other than copying Panzer II front armor Porsche went to work moving stuff around.  They kept the motor in the same spot although made the case out of magnesium and moved the rear axel back 2.6 inches to change the leverage.  They moved the battery from beside the fuel tank to two boxes located before the front tires in the front fender wings.

 

By 1972 Porsche flirted with rear deck lid spoilers and were surprised that rear wheels stuck better down the Mulsanne Straight.  From there, it only got better for all serious vehicles wishing to improve fuel mileage and traction.

 

Onward

Doug