Ford Gt will spank a Viper

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Firstly, may I say that I agree with comments about the significance of ability and tuning, but that is not what the magazine reports are measuring. They are testing the car as it is provided by the manufacturer and in doing so making a judgment on the design, equipment, compromises (or lack of) and the position that it holds in the market place. If it can be shown that a factory Ford GT is quicker than a factory Dodge Viper, then we can say that a factory Ford GT is better than the factory Dodge Viper in that area.

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The magazines might not test the potential of a car, but that should be a major factor for choosing your car. It does not matter if you prefer corners or straights, if a car can beat anything on the road after you install a $500 part, it does not matter how slow or fast it is stock.

Any way, if you want a Viper, there is very little chance that you will buy a GT and if you want a GT, there is very little chance that you will buy a Viper, so it comes back to which car you buy and what you do to it. Most people will leave them stock because they are already very, very fast, but the type of person that puts a twin turbo system on a Viper will deffinitely put a $500 or less pulley on a GT.

Also, that .3 seconds on a race track is pretty insignifigant because very few of these cars will ever see real competition. Ford could have made the worlds best sports car, but I'm not sure that it can compete against McLaren F1's on a track.

 

[ChrisL]

Ron, I understand that 0.3 can disappear depending on the conditions. Hopefully a magazine will do the eventual back-to-back test soon so that we can discuss the differences with a little more authority.

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if a car can beat anything on the road after you install a $500 part, it does not matter how slow or fast it is stock.


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But that then becomes a never ending argument. You can always spend another $500 dollars until your car eventually becomes a McLaren F1, then you could spend another $500 on top of that again.

The next question that I would then ask is why the manufacturer didn't spend that extra $500 ($100 wholesale). Probably budgetary constraints, maybe emissions, maybe reliability. In any case, you can bet that the car was built to the limits of the manufacturers abilities within the given limitation… as would any other car belonging to any other manufacturer. The final result then being a direct indication of that manufacturer’s abilities.

And finally, the reasons that someone might have to buy a car is an enormous topic in its own right. I think though that most people would not buy sports car X because they want to beat sports car Y, but because they like the idea that car X could beat car Y. In all likelyhood, they would let someone else provide the proof and then proudly drive around in a car with the same badge as the one that won.

 

[James]

As I see it most people buy a supercar for the "blag" at the pub.

"Yeah, my 911 Turbo is 0.5 seconds faster to 60mph than your Ferrari!" Its all about the size of your "cock". /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif

The fact is very few super cars really see "full death" around a track. I know a number of owners of various exotic cars, none of which are driven ant where near their potential. So a second here or there won't show on the public roads, only on paper in the pub!!

The arguement at the track comes to down to time, money, development, experience etc. At which point the words "My GT will spank you" would only be voiced by a complete tool.

That's reality!

Regards,

J.P

 

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The next question that I would then ask is why the manufacturer didn't spend that extra $500 ($100 wholesale). Probably budgetary constraints, maybe emissions, maybe reliability. In any case, you can bet that the car was built to the limits of the manufacturers abilities within the given limitation… as would any other car belonging to any other manufacturer. The final result then being a direct indication of that manufacturer’s abilities.

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It's not that they left off a $500 part, it's that fact that the stock pulley is too big for maximum performance. If I needed 100 pulleys, I could get them machined for about $25 each. Ford already made the stock pulley, so the cost to make it smaller at the factory would be $0.00.

Ford can't afford to put a car on the road that has the reliability issues of a Ferrari or Lamborgini. I'm sure the GT would be able to take a grandmother to the market every day for years on end with only normal maintenence. The people who can buy a $150,000 car generally don't worry about a blown up engine, so they will add a pulley (which will be expensive because the limited market it's selling to is rich) and have the most powerful car on the street.

That one pulley and possibly a chip will put that engine in to the 7-800 horse power range, that Viper needed twin turbo's to get there.

On the other hand, a viper and a turbo kit would cost a lot less than a GT.

What matters is that what ever you do to a Viper, Ferrari, Lamborgini or Porsche, a GT with bolt on's will be able match it's performance. That's potential and that is why it does not matter how fast it is stock.

 

[ChrisL]

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"Yeah, my 911 Turbo is 0.5 seconds faster to 60mph than your Ferrari!" Its all about the size of...

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The arguement at the track comes to down to time, money, development, experience etc. At which point the words "My GT will spank you" would only be voiced by a complete tool.

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C’mon guys, lets put things back into perspective. We aren’t talking about gratuitous bragging here. Being excited about your favourite car being 0.5 sec quicker is no different to being excited about your football team beating the top team by the smallest of margins. You will probably yell and punch the air in joy but the world is still the same the day after (except that you have a warm fuzzy feeling inside). For some reason though when it comes to cars we are supposed to respond like adolescents and act “too cool to care”. Life is too short to be indiscriminately knocking these little joys on the head.
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Mike Dozier]

Chris

Good point. The fact that all three US makers offer
Supercars is amazing in itself. Wasn't too long ago
that thought would have been inconceivable.
Nothing wrong with a little bench racing...but don't
loose sight of the big picture.

MikeD