VECTOR cars!

A lot of it was because Vector had no pedigree. No decades of racing experience, no other models built, could go on and on. Ferrari can get away with no testing, because of its history.


Don't forget, it took Jerry nearly 20 years to get his funding. He was showing his Vector car (albeit different body) and trying to raise money since 1972.

 

Very true points. And Ferrari almost got away with it...but of the "Super Ferrari's" the F50 is consistently the least liked...which is unfortunate as I really like that car, especially being the last Ferrari V-12 paired with a 6 Speed. But the F50's story is certainly a different tale. Vector acted like an established player without any history behind them and that certainly hurt them.

 

Last night I went thru all my magazines & read all the Vector articles. In one it mentions having been clocked at Riverside raceway at 192 mph. (W2, article was in 1986) The driving impressions were very favorable & the saw nearly 160 in second gear. They also seemed to be looking for a road clear enough to top the car out. I found that bit interesting. Reminded me of how many cars they actually tested on public roads back then!

I guess my biggest gripe is hearing negative comments about rivets, as if that was the cars only aerospace tech. Then the whole car is dismissed as being garbage. They were featured at NASA's Technology 2001 for using advanced materials, construction & technologies, after all. With all the positive publicity & reviews the car received in its day, its a shame the way the general opinion is now. The only real drawback in most articles is simply not really believing the car would enter production. But it did, with complete DOT & EPA testing, and 625 dyno tested HP!


I'm less surprised at the company's failure, considering early pricing of the car alone, not to mention Jerry being hard to deal with, etc etc

 

I think it's a shame that people allow a racing pedigree (or lack thereof) to dictate their opinion about a car and its manufacturer. You gotta start somewhere. Sure, Lamborghini has participated in racing, but nowhere near as much as Ferrari, Lotus, Bentley, ect, yet they are one of the favorites among enthusiasts.

It probably would have been wise for Jerry to work his way up, as Mr. Pagani did, instead of starting his own project right out of school. I do give him kudos for the intense dedication he had to the Vector.

I do agree that making huge claims, such as "we have built the fastest car" or something of that nature, and not allowing people to test it is setting yourself up for bad press. Journalists are not going to take your word for it, and not allowing them to test it will create a lot of skepticism.

Chris

 

I agree. I've never been much of a racing fan, so the whole "pedigree" aspect never swayed my opinion about a car. I understand that a lot can be learned from racing & applied to street cars, but I don't gush over it. I tend to be drawn towards cars built from the start as street cars, such as the Miura, Countach, EB110 etc. Lamborghini started out with no automotive history or pedigree (unless you count his tractors). He also had a strict no racing policy. I also generally don't care much for street cars which are barely legal thinly disguised race cars. I guess I go against the grain.
Not sure that Jerry needed to "work his way up" ...but rather, in his own words "build a reputation, not ride on one" ...proving his claims, or at the very least, prove what the car could do would have helped this.

I guess for me, it boils down to the company's problems, Jerry's attitude, & the cars never really being top speed tested when that was one of the cars biggest claims.

...I'm still trying to find out more about the supposed bonneville test run...

 

...to add to the above, it still bugs me that instead of simply being an interesting footnote in automotive history, the car is trashed & all of its positive attributes are ignored.

 

sadly it's what gets into print that can chart the course of a cars reputation ...look at the ferrari 348, it got some bad press to start, further (not) helped by luca's own press remark about it, but is really a gem of a car

 

this being his newest effort ....his site speaks of a transverse 2000hp drag race engine, old school 3 speed automatic trans ...sorry, do not want IMO

http://www.autoblog.com/2007/11/13/new-vector-wx8-revives-iconic-american-supercar-name/
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Honestly, I think the Wx8 is pretty cool IMO. Everyone seems to hate it, but it's something different. I wouldn't buy it, but there is something very stealthy about it.

Chris

 

I also like the new car, especially sans supra headlights. Keep in mind that this is just a mock-up. Very subject to change & refinement.
Due to reasons we just discussed, I think he has a tough uphill battle ahead of him, but I wish him luck.

Here's the specs page...at least what he has in mind...

http://www.vectormotors.com/wx8-specs.html

 

Look at Panoz. Plenty of race pedigree.

 

It makes me really happy to see a thread about the Vector being so active. Since my youtube channel is getting a lot of exposure, maybe I could use that to put together a video with narration, stating the facts we see in this thread. While I can't totally change public opinion, hopefully I can enlighten at least a few people on what really went wrong and that the W8 was an exceedingly well built car. If anyone has any ideas or would like to contribute, please let me know.

Chris

 

I believe I can help

VectorFiles is pretty much the world's foremost expert...I think I'm like person number 4 on the list of "Vector experts who didn't work at the company" haha

 

Excellent! I know you're a huge Vector fan yourself, Josh, as well as most of the people here. This is a thought that just sprung to mind, so I'm still brainstorming ideas. I have footage of lots of M12s (5 or 6) and 1 W8. I would be narrating the story and showing footage of what I am talking about at the moment (something I've done before). This might be somewhat of a tall order, but I'm hoping to get footage of at least 1 other W8 (preferably in motion, even if it's slow) and the Wx3s. Hopefully I can make it to another Supercar Sunday this summer!

I'm learning a lot from this thread, and I definitely want to make sure I get my facts straight, before uploading this. You guys definitely know a lot more than what can be found elsewhere on the internet.

Chris

 

That would be cool. Especially if you can document sources. One thing I hate about YouTube is that any idiot can make a video & look legit. That & the lame comments on almost every video.
Be neat to see a sort of development history along with the achievements the car did have...

 

There's a guy who frequents Super Car Sunday with a Silver W8. As for the WX3's I do have video of them somewhere from a few years back...I can also try to contact Mr Wiegert about a "Vector Documentary" and see if he'd be willing to lend some help.

 

Ultimately, I'd love to see a book detailing the whole Vector story, including engineering & development. It would be nice to see a documentary style film tho too. I'm sure there's some unseen footage hiding somewhere...

 

Another thing...the car was designed not only to last a very long time, but to be easily serviced. I'd love to hear some owners impressions regarding these features. Especially now that its been 20 years since the cars were new & a few have been restored...

 

I like this idea. If you're down for a couple of minor road trips, I think it wouldn't be too hard to get some fresh W8 footage/interviews. There are at least two W8s within driving distance.

 

The silver one probably the one that I have been dying to see the most. Absolutely stunning. It would be especially helpful if Wiegert would be willing to help in any way. If I could see some of these cars, it would definitely give incentives to take a trip to SoCal again. I'm hoping I can get some footage of a Vector driving around, whether it be in SoCal or here in Michigan.

That's true too! Not only better build quality than most exotics, but easier maintenance. Interviews is one thing I am considering.

If it's to see a Vector, I'll take a road trip as far as necessary! I will hopefully see you at Lingenfelter's tomorrow and we can talk about it more (he has a purple M12.)

Chris

 

Yes. I'll be there at 10:00 AM.

 

If you guys do interviews, please record them! I'd really like to get enough solid info together to start a book or in depth article

 

Here's a combination of several posts from various forums, from Kurt, former Vector employee & owner of chassis 015

What would you like to know about the Vectors? The W8 is the only ALL AMERICAN Vector ever produced. There was one W2, and the two Avtech cars AWX3 and AWX3R that were produced by the original Vector Aeromotive in Wilmington CA. The M12 is a chopped up Diablo with a cheap chopper gun fiberglass shell over it. The engine was flipped 180 degrees and a getrag 5 speed was mated to it. Nothing more than a Lamborghini kit car. The W8's have a Semi aluminum monocoque chassis with a 4130 Chro-Moly roll cage, All production W8's have a Rodeck Y block. All of them are resleevable. All are High Performance components that are much stronger than anything inside a Corvette engine. They are twin turbocharged, transversely mounted, and each car came with a minimum of 625hp and 650lbft of torque. I say minimum because a few of the W8's put down more power than that as factory stock cars. 013 and 015 are good examples of higher power Vectors. Each W8 has a boost control in the dash that can adjust boost levels up to 11lbs. This is not recommended for 93 octane fuel. You need to run race fuel of 114 octane to increase the boost level or you will detonate and melt a piston. The engine is built from the factory to produce 1200HP (detuned for day to day driving, but no less capable of producing these numbers with a little boost and reprogramming of the timing curve and injector dwell oin the Tech 1. The Vector W8 engines were extremely detuned. There is a lot of room to go in the twin turbo V8. It was dynoed at 1200hp and then boost, timing, injector dwell were all adjusted to a conservative 625+ hp. This was done for longevity. The car was meant to last the life of its owner. To have an engine wound up tight at 1200hp is great, they dont live long in that state of tune, 10,000 miles before a major rebuild would be a long life span for a 1200hp V8 but 200,000 miles on a 625hp engine is a much better approach when selling a half million dollar car. In my writings I state horsepower ratings with a + because each Vector has a personality. Some run a little wilder than others. Car 013 and 015 just happen to put down a little more power than the stated 625. They are closer to the 725-750 mark. They both go like scalded cats. PP001 has a purpose built engine in her and is a wicked *****. Putting down well over 850hp. She frightens her current owner on an occasional basis. Each Vector has a boost control on the dash. If you were lucky enough to maintain the original owners manual you would see that it states power based on boost and octane ratings. The Vector produces its stated power of 625+hp on 92 octane. It will get wild and hairy with 114 octane in it and the boost cranked up to 11lbs with the dash control. Up to 1200hp. There is only one "California Emissions" yet all of them would pass emissions. The car is capable of pulling 1.25 G on a skid pad, it just depends on how you set the suspension on them. The cars ride very nice, and handle very well, 0-60 happens in 3.9 seconds and they top out well above 218mph. The body is Kevlar, Carbon Fiber and S-Glass. The interior is wide and comfortable. All Vectors have 3 speed transmissions. The reason for the 3 speed auto is because when they were looking for a transverse mounted transmission application there were limitations to what any of them could handle from a power perspective. Not many transmissions were capable of handling 1200hp (only a 2 times safety factor) for the engine. Typically from a safety perspective in an automotive application you try to engineer items with a 3 times safety factor for durability reasons. With that in mind you would have to find a transmission capable of dealing with 1800+ horsepower. They are almost nonexistent in a standard form let alone a transversely mounted unit. So they selected an item that had the ability to utilize many high performance components. GM's Turbo Hydro 400 had many aftermarket shops building transmissions for big horsepower applications. At one point GM had a front wheel drive version called the Turbo Hydro 425. The housing for this transmission filled the bill for our application. The housing itself was capable of handling very large horsepower and torque numbers. But all of the internals and drive belt system were not. So they utilized the housing from the 425 as the basis for a transmission. They then utilized totally custom internals (planetary gears, bands, clutch packs, valve body etc) to make it capable of handling the power the engine was capable of. They then attacked the drive belt side and widened the chain cover and almost tripled the width of the belt and had it produced out of better materials. The gears were custom made to accept the belt width and a torque converter was also custom made for the application. They then had a transmission that met the power requirements that the engine could put though it. The shift points in the valve body were set up for the RPM/ torque band of the Twin turbo power plant. This made a perfect mate for the twin turbo power plant. The one item that is present in every manual gearbox that is attached to a turbo charged engine is turbo lag. Every time you have to shift you have to depress the clutch drop the RPM pull the stick, blip the throttle to match rpm to clutch disc speed and reengage the clutch. The turbos spool down and must spool back up to 150,000 to 200,000 rpm to make boost again. So you get giant amounts of turbo lag. With the Vector there is no turbo lag between shifts. It's constant linear acceleration. Hence the reason for the 3 speed auto. Also with over 650lb ft of torque you don’t really need 3 extra gears. The car has enough grunt to move itself along. Many of the parts in the cars are from aircraft, Switches, Circuit Breakers, the Electroluminescent display panel, aluminum wire harnesses are all from jet fighters. The aluminum honeycomb floor pan is also aircraft derived. Cherry-Max rivets and epoxy bonding hold the chassis together (aircraft derived) other parts on the car were very heavy-duty stock car components and F-1 components for the day. Fit and finish are second to none. I have yet to see another exotic with better panel fit and finish. From a pure driving perspective, the steering is a little light but has good feedback, the car will understeer a little but is easily overcome by adding a little throttle. Acceleration is linear and does not stop; the automatic transmission copes well with the boost and never lets the engine fall off its torque curve. Its like being strapped to a SCUD Missile. From a maintenance perspective, my pal has a 14 year old vector that has cost about $2000.00 to service over its life time. Most of that being fluid changes, a battery and a couple of small items. Let me know if you find another $450,000 car that can claim that over its lifetime. I know people have sent their McLaren F1's back to the factory to be returned to perfect condition for the tune of $85,000.00. Ferraris need a $7500 service every 7500 miles. So if the Vector is such a bad car, why has it held up so well and cost so little to keep in perfect running order? The car was amazing for its time. Built to last the life of the owner. The car was a success, but the owner of Vector made a bad decision to allow an investment group to come in, they leveraged their investment in to a hostile takeover. They then proceeded to trash the company and its owner. Unfortunately when you develop such a car it is very costly to do. It took Vector $30 million to develop and produce a total of 20 cars. By comparison it took Bugatti the same $30million to produce its first prototype of the EB110. Magazines were not allowed to test a running Bugatti until it was fully developed. The same goes for Audi, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche. Those companies wont let a Magazine touch or test their babies until they have all of the bugs worked out and the cars are a rolling showcase. Usually they have taken 7 cars to DOT for crash testing here in the U.S. and they have run hundreds of thousands of miles on preproduction cars to make sure they are ready for their world debut. Unfortunately they did not have the luxury of having 20 to 30 test mules that they placed millions of miles on before letting the press get their hands on them. So there were 2 magazine articles that did not help Vector out. One tested the original W2. This car was literally the first mock up of what the car was going to be. Only built for the purpose of showing potential investors what the concept was. But with no other test car to offer curious automobile writers, Jerry would take a prototype and let Magazines test the only car that he had. It was still far from complete and no where near developed. So it had teething pains. Go ask any automotive manufacturer to let you drive their concept that is sitting on a revolving pedestal at an auto show. Usually they are only clay and plastic sheeting, let alone a running physical vehicle. So Jerry was brave enough to allow the press to play with a one off concept car. It backfired on the company. He did not have the luxury of sending out cars to the press after a lengthily development program. So they tested development cars that were still being put through their paces. Vector had standing orders and a long list of buyers by 1992, The hostile takeover destroyed the company, the Indonesians tore the place apart a long ugly battle ensued and the Indonesians ended up moving everything to Florida except the people who built the cars. What they produced was a complete abortion known as the M12 which was given the distinct title of the worst car ever tested in the history of Autoweek. People who don’t know what actually went on with Vector, associate the M12 abortion with the Vector Aeromotive car company, which it actually was not built by. It was built by Mega Tech LTD. No affiliation what so ever with the original All American Car Company. Unfortunately people base their opinions on rumors and BS lies. Hey I read that on the internet on in a magazine, it must be true. Hey the Pontiac Grand Prix won Motor Trends car of the year award in 1986, it must have been a great car. Oh there were 27 safety recall notices on it, but hey GM had spent the most advertising dollars that year with Motor Trend, so magically something had to become car of the year. Many people out here on the Internet type BS remarks and people assume that they are telling the truth. The Vector just happens to have fallen victim to this type of hype. Dont get me wrong, I am not stating that the Vector is rolling perfection, but it is an excellent car. The one thing that amazes me is that every article ever written about the Vector complements the vehicle on its fit and finish. The only item that any magazine has ever said negatively was that the car overheats. So on that single item the Vector has some how become the most unreliable supercar ever built.

 

Very throughout post!

It should be noted that the WX-3 Avtech (as of 2009) runs on 14lbs of boost and currently generates about 850hp (This was told to me by Mr. Wiegert himself, how accurate that is, it's hard to be sure). What's interesting also is Mr Wiegert's opinion of the M-12. As a car guy, he actually likes the car and doesn't think it's that bad, but he certainly doesn't like the fact that is built by a group who took over his company.

 

I don't mind the M12's either, but imo just aren't true Vectors. I like the looks, but they don't look as good as the WX-3. That car just has it right! It probably isn't too bad of a car considering its parts tho. I'd like to see a back to back comparison with an early diablo. Be interesting to see how different they are due to engine position, suspension, etc. It's too bad they have such poor fit & finish. And that engine cover is horrible. Adds to the kit car look.
I'm curious if these are really chopper gun fiberglass bodies. My magazine mentions carbon fiber, but that might have been mistaken due to the earlier cars construction...