Are sports cars too fast now?

I remember reading a Road and Track article years ago in which the author touts the virtues of a Fiat Topolino.
Something to the point of; I love driving this car at 99% (trying to squeeze that last percent) more than driving an exotic at 50%.

It like racing a Formula Vee. You have 50HP. Just like everyone else. Money wont buy you a win. Skill will. Ever see the fabulously rich in FV's. Nope. The ego cant handle it.

 

I had a guy pull up next to me at a gas station in his new Shelby Cobra. He never said anything about my 360. His attack was totally at me. First, he said his car was faster and had more horsepower. I said that I didn't care. He wanted to race me on the street for $10,000. I told him that I was not interested. After ten minutes of belittling me because I would not race him, he roared off in a huff. Just a few minutes later I saw him pulled over by CHP. For the price I paid for my 360, there were a handful of other cars that I could have bought that were faster. I DON'T CARE !!!!!!

 

i think street cars have been too fast for years. my 355 is too fast for the street. hardly anywhere can i actually get out of 2nd gear at high rpm. 7-8k rpm in 3rd gear is what...100+mph? doesn't sound like much but on public roads, it's a lot. i would vote yes, but i don't think it's crazy. it's what manufacturers do, every generation needs to be faster than the previous until you just can't go faster. i'd hesitate to buy a new model that is slower than the last. it would seem like a step back.

 

I voted "Could be. In the wrong hands these are lethal".
I now own a 458 and it is an extremely fast car.
The electronic nannies on it keep it from being too dangerous most of the time though.

To use a handgun analogy, why do people buy a .50 cal. or .44 magnum handgun?
Unless they spend a lot of time in grizzly bear country, they buy it for the thrill of shooting one at the gun range.

Same idea with sports cars. My 458 is not my daily driver (I use an Audi S5 for that).
The 458 is a complete thrill for that occasional blast on a backroad or track event.

Is a 560 hp 458 any more fun than a 270 hp 328 GTS?
Actually, the surprising answer is, no, not really, IMHO.
The lightness, great handling, and simple mechanics of the 328 make up for the higher power and high tech stuff in the 458.
The fun of owning a Ferrari is feeling the car handle well through the corners and hearing the engine sing, pop, and burble. And they all do that real well.
.

 

Way back when I tried to get my old man to let me buy 250 GTO #3223 (for the princely sum of $4,000 in 1966) the term "too fast for the street" was often used to describe cars that were very fast, but were also a handful to drive on the street because they had in/out clutches, horribly stiff suspensions and the like...

Fast forward to the present and we have cars that are a lot faster than a 250 GTO in both acceleration and cornering power. These cars aren't a handful to drive slowly, but they really don't come alive until you are pushing them a lot harder than is prudent on public roads.

Nowadays, cars have so much grip and cornering power that if you go around any corner at a high g, you are going to be so darn fast that if you hit a patch of dirt on the road you will be collecting the pieces from the guardrail or the ditch for weeks.

I used to subscribe to the "public road theory"... That is, it's a public road, that means it's your road and my road, and what do you care if, when you're not using it,,,, I race on it...

Now I keep any high g cornering and high speed sporting driving on the track where it belongs, because really high performance cars are really just "too fast for the street"... I think that is really behind the growth of track days and HPDE events. The cars are so fast that you can't use all the capability on the street anymore, so you go out and do a track day to enjoy the car.

 

NOW?

Cars have been this fast for years, maybe decades. Not from the factory, but modders have always been eager to make cars undrivably fast.

 

True dat.

I can have fun with the 430 on a twisty road, but always at maybe 70% max. I always leave a margin for the unseen and unanticipated. Fear for my own safety, and more importantly, other people's safety keeps me from getting crazy. Track days are incredible fun though a bit costly in terms of tires and brakes.

Dave

 

Interesting that its near unanimous they are faster than they need to be.

 

Sportbike guys talk about this all the time, it is a very similar situation. To me it isn't that the cars/bikes are capable of stupendous acceleration or top speed, it is that at normal speeds they feel slow and boring. These cars and bikes aren't even breathing hard at 100 mph.

So to get the same "rush of speed" out of a 911 GT2 RS that you could have gotten from a Porsche 356 you end up going twice as fast. And have four times the kinetic energy to dissipate in a crash (or more as new cars also have greater mass). Brakes just stop without drama. Shift without lifting by pulling a lever. Get out your cell phone and order pizza at 120 mph if you wanted.

Basically they are too fast that if the driver wants a constant adrenaline rush he is heavily into impoundment and arrest territory. This is not a bad thing per se, but is progress.

Take a spin in an XK120, then the same route in a 16M. Try to match the sensation of speed in both cars. The Ferrari will be way over any speed limit while the Jaguar will probably feel happiest near or under the speed limit.

This is probably one reason why some people like the older cars (and they can work on them).

 

I think manufacturers know this too, but a high end maker cannot allow others, especially less expensive others, overtake them in any performance parameter. Let's face it, a shopper for a new exotic is likely to walk from the Ferrari store over to the Lambo store if the Lambo offers significantly more acceleration for the money. Power is the easiest parameter to increase, especially with regulations making meaningful weight reduction difficult, if not impossible. So the HP war will continue until some outside factor ends it.

The good news is we can buy a used exotic that is 5-15 years old that still has performance undreamed of just 20 years ago and for a fraction of new.

Dave

 

I have to wonder what percentage of exotic buyers are even aware of the performance statistics of their cars.

I never looked into the stats of my F355...I just thought it looked cool.

I bet the percentage of buyers who are aware of the performance differences between cars is smaller than many here would think.

 

Yes, IMHO.

Now, how much thrill is there in this 30 HP device?
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Interesting indeed. For a fun street car, I'm happy with my 328GTS (especially with harder tires) as I'm more able to safely play in the street at its limits. My daily driver 996 doesn't get used to its full-potential 99% of the time.

Having said this, I would enjoy faster cars for track use. However, today's sport cars in stock form seem to be in no-man's land for me. They are a compromised setup: they are faster but the suspension is generally not setup for the track and there aren't enough safety equipment geared for proper track use i.e. harness, roll cage, etc.

 

And if you can not catch Chas calle me...

 

I'm not worried about it...

 

Hell, the 2011 Toyota Sienna (minivan) is faster from 0-60 than many "sports cars" of 20 years ago. And while its handling is still boatlike compared to modern sports cars (or even a 2011 Camry), it's not too bad really. Certainly better than any American muscle car of the 60s or 70s.

But is it fun to drive on a winding mountain road on a warm summer evening? Not hardly.

 

Looks like a thrill to me! I would pay to drive one.

Honestly, I think that there is a competition among sports car manufacturers to build more powerful vehicles in large part because top speed and 0-60 acceleration times are easily quantifiable. And I do think that a lot of owners know their stats, if for nothing other than bragging rights.

A few years ago I let a friend drive my 308. He commented that his
68 Mustang had more power.

Probably so, but let's see a 68 Mustang out handle it.

For me, the 308 is pure sports car. Not a drag racer, but more fun in the twisties than any other car I've ever driven. And I can have fun without exceeding the speed limit. . . much.

 

I don't think they are too fast at all. With Ferrari the speed comes with the package. A drunk driver in a Chevy or someone texting and driving in a Camry is far more dangerous and more likely to cause any problem than any 700HP engine with a responsible driver behind the wheel. I would say the speed and horsepower potential is helpful in avoiding traffic problems if anything.

 

Definitely, any car that will pull 4-second 0-60 times and top 200 mph is a lethal weapon with the wrong driver.

I used to have a blast in my 330 2+2 and not exceed 60 mph; same holds true for my current 308 QV. I've pushed both of them north of 100 but there's no sense in doing it again.

I keep thinking i'd like to have a 360 or 550, but do I really? I could lose my drivers license just as easily at 62 or 63 as I could have at 22 or 23.

 

I didn't think cars could get any faster back when the 1990 Nissan 300ZX TT was released....300hp and 0-60 in 5.5sec. Look where we are now with cars, it is both incredible and scary. I drive slowly and not aggressive at all and my 360 seemed insanely fast to me. Couldn't imagine anything faster, more powerful, etc.

 

FWIW I dont think Bobs intention when starting this thread was about the danger of todays performance. Its more about how its superfluous and useless it is to 99% of the owners of these cars.

 

+1, I agree with you completely.

 

I seriously want to know where the hell people actually drive the really fast cars, Fast on public roads. Too many people, too much risk. Top tier Sportbikes are even more insane.

i like cars and all, but at some point the fact remains there are too many damn people on the planet.

 

Yes, that's pretty much it.

But, I do worry about one thing. Having seen what happened with the Muscle car era, I worry that someone somewhere will start a campaign to limit super cars. It may come in additional costs of registration, or increased insurance, or some kind of limits on speed or acceleration or horsepower or fuel ratings to get the manufacturers to make slower cars and force older, faster cars off the road permanently.

Are we obsoleting ourselves by asking manufacturers to continue to play this game?

 

I guess it was the second choice in the poll that led me to that conclusion.

"Could be. In the wrong hands these are lethal."