paulchua - Road & Track 1987

Hi Paul,

I have had myself a real fun time running through your Mondial magazine lists. Actual treasure trove! So I took special note of the track times for their 3.2 Mondial in issue 1987 Road and Track and have some observations.

1) 0-60 MPH = 6.3 seconds
2) 0-100 = 17.4

So yesterday I hunted out one of the few flat four lanes up here in the mountains and did a one-potato, two potato test from indicated 60 mph to indicated 120 mph. Here are my observations.

I will accept the 0-60 times since my potato diction is not good enough to get that right. I have a stop watch around here someplace that might show up in the next six months or so so I am stuck with tubers for now.

However, I take tentative issue with the 0-100 mile times. Granting my actul run was probably more like 54mph - 108 mph I got seven or eight potatoes. Simply adding 8 potatoes to the 6.3 and I still get 14.3sec to 108.

In addition I have actual elapse time tickets for my 200hp 1984 Z-28 that show 1/4 mile speed at the exact same 94mph but one half second more time = 15.0 seconds. That included a very good solid hook up smokey burn out which that car would do all day long. The article did not specify, if I remember correctly, how they left the line. Both cars are about the same weight.

I speculate a really good smokey burn out with our heavily weighted and heavily slip limitted rear end would really catapult the thing out the shoot. This was always a complaint we had with 911 numbers. We figured at least .5 second advantage.

Counting potatoes is always open to plenty of error but I have been doing it since 1972 so my potatos have become more consistent in size over time. Anyway, over the last year I have seen a dramatic increase in performance. Specifically I have a proxy 1/4 mile time running up hill at which time I simply look at the speedometer as I pass a given road sign. No potatos involved and no smoky burn out.

Last year the car would do just over 80 mph which was a dissapointment compared to my other cars. After noticing the car got more sprightly this year I did it again and got just under 90 mph. No drag strips anywhere near here. When in a couple more years when I get some new belts broken in I might just seek one out down in Atlanta.

Incidenally, the $100 each Continental ExtremeContact Summer DWs in stock sizes were dead smooth and dead stable. I lover em! At the end of the day a 0 -100 mph time at 17.4 is still three or four seconds better then the 84 /Z.28!

 

Hi Paul

Your classifications are spot on imho. When I got the car I seriously looked into a centrifugal supercharger but thought twice about the $6,000 purchase price and $1,000 instalation fee. Plus a centrifugal puts all power and stress on high revs. Then over the last year all the cobwebs got blown out.

I don't normally run it up to 7,000 in first because it only gets me to about 40mph and notifies every cop within radio distance. But yeasterday I wanted to get ahead of the cross-light that just turned green so made my right hand turn flat out. Jeeze. No supercharger needed anymore!

Another thing that has happened is throttle response has moved from 3,500 rpm right down to 2,500. The car sounds different as well. Not as raspy. And it starts on all eight cylindars rather hopping up over as much as three seconds. The car must have had quite a lot of carbon in the system disrupting the flow, absorbing fuel and releasing it randomly etc etc.

I was given a BMW M3 to drive lane changes at Road Atlanta and the sudden cam at 6,000 rpm was absolutely terrifying as the first lane change light came up. The automatic mechanical clutch was terrible off the line. I hear they are better now. But I told the instructors something was wrong with the car.

I don't know what I would do with 400 hp, let alone 500 that is now available other then kill myself in a tight corner. At the time one of the instructors, who held the absolute track record in a Viper told me 300 hp on the road is just about right. I felt honored that both he and I had both rolled our respective Caddy CTS cars. It had a trecherous stability control system that was, well, INTRUSIVE in the extreme. I hear they are better now as well.

No one was injured in those mishaps, although my Caddy, at least, was damaged on every single surface having gone upstide down and backward over a 15 foot cliff. Not all that fast either as not one of the many air bags deployed. I gues all the small rocks, saplings, and dirt slowed me down just right. I remember thinking, as the trees passed me upside down that I would need a whole new paint job.

That is the only accident I ever had and was the one that I had always allotted to myself - 'You are permited one bad accident' then must change your ways. And I did too. Took a year to get over my subsequent responsible driving. And no going back as there is no way to regain the feel after taking the pledge.

I guess responsible driving is a relative term.

 

PS: One advantage is nothing else around here sounds even remotely like the Ferrari. And the entire apparition has an intimidation factor. I sort of expected to be selected out by a few Z-28s but never happened. We have plenty of BMWs and a few 911s but mostly driven by people who may never have seen tripple digits on the speedo.

Vette guys don't worry about anything.

 

Hi Howie,

Vettes single handedly, and imho heroically, put an end to The High End Supercar Cult. But you are right about their ubiquity. I would only buy a Vette if I was hell bent on smoking just about every other car on the planet, or at least wanted to look that way.

But then I would need to hunt down all those supercars which are, for the most part, parked in garages. And those who drive them don't know how to drive them anyway. Hell. My 1986 Mondial 3.2 spooks just about any posser I might encounter. What I get out of the 3.2 is the simple fact I live in sports car mountain heaven with perfect two lane black top, no traffic, no cops, and left to my own devices.

I like the perfectly running (after much carbon removal) little engine, perfect throttle response. mechanical everything, steering rotation that I have never experienced in any other car. And steering. Man what steering. I have known only two cars where I do not need to be attentive to steering down straight roads. My 1965 Corvair and the Mondial.

And of course the Mondial does corners. With the mid engine the polar moments are simply the best way to manage a corner on real roads.

 

The accident SHOULD have been scary but I seem to suffer something called delayed startle response. This goes back many decades. I remember hiking above lake Lucern on a deserted track, looking every inch the hick Yank in kackie shorts, a camera bag, and some sort of polo shirt or something.

Approaching me was a lean and hungry looking guy with gotee and very bad attitude on his face. As he passed me on my left he balled his left fist and drove it full bore from on high into my balls. Or so he was hoping. I simply moved my left hand, with heavy christal face watch in front and THATS what he hit. It was so hard a hit it shock me half off my feet but did not hurt one bit.

I suspect his knuckles were not so lucky. I slowly turned towards him in calm contempation, just looking bemused. After two or three seconds he took off running. I count that a street fight well won. I suspect my contemplation looked to him as if I was deciding whether it was worth my while to kill him with my bare hands right there on the spot or not.

 

And its not the first time something like that has happened to me. I must look like a real *****. Once, while returning from work in Africa, ending up in Madagascar I decided to make the rounds to Mauritius, la Reunion, and to Cairo via da es Salam to see the pyramids on my way back to home base in Frankfurt. I did this even though the consulate, in a confidential memo, told all of us to avoid 737 Tanzanian aircraft because they had far exceeded their maintenance hours.

I have long held the belief that if the pilot is willing to fly the plane I am willing to play passenger. Once I actually took the co-pilot's seat to travel from Mozambique to Swaziland. Pilot just said do not touch anything. Anyway, after all sorts of Frederico Fellini out takes I made it to Cairo but did not have much time and arrainged with the Hilton Concierge to rent a horse pre dawn to ramble out into the dunes for a sunrise photo shoot of the pyramids.

The cabbie left me off in a slum where the "guide" provided a nag and off we rambled together into the dark. Once in position to await sunrise the "guide" insisted I exchange mounts with him. So I did. The "guide" immediatey galloped off out of sight and my new mount went absolutely ape ****.

I have some riding experience so double wrapped the reigns in my fists, stood four square in the stirips and man handled the beast back to earth. After which it was entirely tractible. Spend about an hour photo shooting then decided what the hell to do next. I simply rode the animal to the nearest mud hut with dirt road and waited till a taxi drove by. Flagged it down and kicked the horse in the ass. To this day I wish I had ridden the nag up the Hilton stepps and into the lobby.

I can think of only two motivations for the "guide". First, a simple joke. Not likely. My serious estimation is he hoped I would be thrown from the saddle, and if unhurt kill me with a stone. Then either expain I had been thrown off. However, that would invite "where is his stuff". More likely simply picked my bones and never say another thing.

These are all speculations. However, if you travel to any Arab country do so with an organized group. Preferably an armed group. Mark Twain said it best 'Innocents Abroad" at the pyramids. Something to the effect his group had hired one cohort of Arabs to keep the others at bay. Twain said their guys did a good job with 2x4 clubs but opined it might not have been required to kill the others.

Or some such.

 

I hold little hope in the matter. On returning from Cairo to Frankfurt I sat next to a Brit and without any elaboration simply asked: "Whats wrong with these people?" Without and elaboration on his part he simply said he did not know, but it was firmly in place at an early age since many Arabs send their kids to Switzerland for education without apparent effect.

 

I am reminded of a famous exchange from the British Colonial days. A new man discusses with an Old Arab Hand and asks what is in the back of the Arab's mind. The experienced diplomate says flatly "You will never know what is in the back of their minds. What is seriously important is that they know what is in the back of YOUR mind."

Americans are singularly defficient in this sort of thing. Specifically, we held absolute hegemonic power in Iraq, had defeated the extremists, and had allied with the Sunni Triangle. The absoluste perfect situation. Had we insisted on ten or fifteen thousand 'advisors' with helfire misiles available at a moments notice we would not be in this situation today.

Afghanistan is still possible. But Mesopotamia? Generation upon generation will pass.

 

Thanks for the kind words. I will shift my mind from such matters and return to oil viscosity and tire pressures. In that regard my Continental ExtremeContact Summer DWs really really work well with the Mondial at 40 psi.

These tires have more front bite then the Pirelli P Zero Neros and these front tires always comand the show.