Acceleration: F40, F50, Enzo, CGT & Veyron

The 20 year old magazines are trickling in. So far I have the Car & Driver times for the F40 and F50.

The F40 is faster than the F50, and both are slower than a Scuderia.
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Sorry, this is the real world for straight-line acceleration of US cars below 130 mph. Check the videos I posted. They're all consistent with the magazine numbers, and my own measurements of the Enzo agree with the magazine numbers.

And if you're referring to the F40, I've raced 2 different F40s. Under 130 mph, they are about the same as a Z06 or a Ruf 993 Turbo R.

The biggest problem (in the "real world") is that some CGT, Enzo or Scuderia owners don't take their cars to redline before shifting. I've had a few people tell me their cars blew away a CGT. Then when I raced then in my own CGT, I blew them away to their surprise. You need to take the new normally aspirated cars to redline. The turbo cars are a bit more forgiving if you short shift because they usually loose power near redline anyway. And, their redlines are lower so the owners are more willing to take them to redline. The CGT redline is 8,500 rpm!! That's an exciting trip up the tachometer!

BTW, I'm waiting for MT and R&T for the US F40 and F50. If you have those magazines for the US F40 and F50, please scan and post if not too much trouble. I don't know when I'll get my copies.

 

I'd have to go back to the articles to double check, but I would guess that MT used launch control for the Scuderia. C&D usually uses launch control, but I don't think they did for that Scuderia test.

I usually don't look at any time that starts from 0 because there are too many variables. Personally I never launch my cars hard, so times that start from 0 are not really important to me. I'm more interested in 60-130 times. I included some 60-100 times because they are more readily available from the magazines. You can see that the 60-100 times for the Scuderia for C&D and MT are nearly the same, even though the 0-60 times are pretty far apart.

The CGT is VERY fast... nearly as fast as the Enzo below 130 MPH. Its 60-130 times show this (7.3 vs 7.0 in the Enzo). But you do need to take it to redline on each shift (the Enzo and Scuderia also). You can easily calculate how far a CGT will pull on an F40 or F50 from 60-130 (both starting next to each other) because we have those acceleration numbers for every 10 MPH. You just need to do an linear interpolation in Excel. I'll post those "virtual race" results when I get a chance. But you can see that the CGT quarter-mile trap speed is over 10 mph faster than an F40 or F50 with about a 1-second difference in elapsed time. That's a very large difference when it takes a car another second to pass the quarter mile mark at these speeds. For example, that's 176 feet at 120 mph, or more that 10 car lengths.

 

What clutch setting do you use now? I'd like it to shift a bit faster, but I do like the reliability of a "medium" setting.

 

AND NOW, THE REAL-WORLD RACE WE'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR!

Veyron vs Enzo, CGT, F50 and F40...

All start at 60 MPH and race for about 10 seconds (10.3 to be exactly)...

...and the Veyron pulls 16 cars on the Enzo!

...the F50 pulls almost 2 cars on the F40!

...and the amazing CGT is only 2 cars behind the Enzo and an amazing 12 cars ahead of the F40!
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And, magnified without the Veyron in the distance...
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Yes, the F50 does pull the F40 in this race from 60 mph... but the F40 will catch it about 3 seconds later.