Bwright
Enthusiast
Another tiresome example of exactly what I meant when I said all too many people around here have more opinions than facts. Bob Lutz most emphatically DID NOT say "no compromise" when it came to the Z06. All U.S. legal series production road cars are the result of inevitable compromises among the wishes of the car company, the reality of the market and the dictates of the relevant regulatory bodies.
Three random compromises acknowledged by the Z06 team are:
1. Its brakes. Carbon ceramic rotors were designed but could not be fitted because they exceeded the $4K cost target so the existing brakes are, for now, a compromise between what they wanted and what the market is believed to be willing to pay
2. The titanium exhaust. Standard on the last Z06 it will not reappear on the new one because the cost of the material went too far north and so took it out of the running. The existing mufflers are the best cost compromise the team could come up with within cost parameters
3. The lightweight plexiglass hatch GM had in mind could not pass GM's scratch-resistance tests and further failed to meet Federal UV allowance tolerances in time for the launch. The existing glass hatch is a necessary engineering compromise.
It's amusing that you further actually mention the "every high tech advantage on the F430" since Amedeo Felisa (Ferrari's Deputy Managing Director) was recently quoted in an interview as saying, in regards to high-tech carbon fiber composites, "the manufacturing cost is prohibitive, except for our very top models." This to address why you don't see this material more extensively used in the F430. Amedeo added that aluminum was the lower-tech choice for their mass models like the F430 because "it is the best solution from the point of view of weight versus performance and acceptable cost." ALL CARS are a compromise. Anyone who tells you differently does not understand the auto business at all.
You assume, incorrectly, that emotion and feeling are somehow mutually incompatible with the advancement of technology. I am impressed when I stand next to a WWI Sopwith Camel, I am fond of the Spitfire. But I am rooted to the spot at the mere sight of the SR-71, F-117 or the B2 ATB. Judging from the crowds around some of these modern aircraft at airshows it seems I am not alone.
BTW, would you recommend that all the modern fighters you mentioned above remove their ejection seats because WWI era planes did not have them? You do remember that we are talking about an automotive safety feature here right?
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI) discovered some interesting facts recently. One, that the Dodge Viper, "has the worst overall collision coverage loss experience" among passenger vehicles for the SIX-year period of the nationwide vehicle study. The Institute added that. "The Viper's average loss payment per insured vehicle year, which reflects both the frequency and size of collision claims, is more than seven times the average for all cars. Average loss payments per claim exceed $26,000."
These same institutions later conducted a 2-year study on the efficay of traction/stability systems on the modern automobile. The results showed that "About half of the 28,000 fatal passenger vehicle crashes that occur each year involve a single vehicle. Equipping cars and SUVs with electronic stability control (ESC) can reduce the risk of involvement in these crashes by more than 50 percent. The effect on all single-vehicle crashes (fatal and nonfatal) is somewhat less (about 40 percent)."
I'm sorry but any argument that a few lines of defeatable software code that could potentially save the lives of even 1% (150 people) of the ~15,000 Viper drivers on the road today should not exist in order to pay some imagined tribute to "keepin it real" is making a feeble argument. No Viper driver's life should be that cheap. Not one, not 1%. If anyone wants to "keep it real" then driving a street car of any kind is a pathetic way to try and lay claim to doing so. Go on a a tour of duty in Iraq's most dangerous city. Night ground patrol. Then, if you survive at all, come talk to me about how serious your car makes you.
Yes, I do. And Dodge backs up that belief with each generation which performs and executes even better than the last.
As would I but would you like your country to be defended by them in this day and age? So what makes you think that the Viper can continue to fight off the competition with yesterday's technological standards?
Check out the grim stats on pilots who have been killed operating modern combat aircraft before you say such things.
An F-22 has a limited ability to fly itself and for all intents and purposes (unless you count its automated ECM) does not fight by itself. It still takes a pilot to do the same things that were done in WWI. Make tactical decisions to defeat a similarly equipped airborne enemy who is making a very real effort to kill you and yours. The differences are apparent in technological progress but the mission is the same. And I assure you that the G-forces a Raptor can pull will not feel at all like a video game. They would likely incapacitate a WWI era pilot. As for the mission of the modern fighter, a single cat shot or carrier landing would reduce a WWI era pilot to a babbling mess. Barely subsonic entry into denied territory at 150 - 200 ft. AGL...at night? You would need a straitjacket for them afterward. Technology improves the breed and its capabilities. Not the other way around. Case further in point, a single F-15E Strike Eagle could have sunk half the Japanese fleet that sailed on Pearl Harbor.
BTW, the engine control module on the 1992 RT/10 was more advanced that the entire Cobra that inspired it. It was also in many respects more advanced that spacefaring machines of that past era.
A POV is another way of saying an opinion and can obviously be backed up by empirical data. For example, I am of the POV that the SRT-10 can outperform the Ferrari Enzo in at least one significant measure of performance and empirical testing by Road and Track confirms and underscores that the SRT-10 in fact does so in a manner that exceeds a statistical probability for error. I am disappointed that the fact that a POV and supporting empirical data go hand in hand had to be explained to anyone.
