Ferrari LaFerrari vs Mclaren P1 vs Porsche 918

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szyUN5GlQ7c]The Porsche 918 Spyder Tested - CHRIS HARRIS ON CARS - YouTube[/ame]

Agreed. It is such a beautiful car, I like it more and more every time I watch something like this.

 

Question: who would choose the P1 over the 918?

 

none

 

The 918 seems to be getting mixed reviews. It's undeniably fast, but its hybrid-ness just cannot be fully tuned out, it's always going to add an element of awkwardness or at least something we're not at this time used to which may take some time to really dig in.

Interesting Chris Harris notes he couldn't comfortable driver the car at 10/10ths and that he cannot imagine it being quite as quick as the lighter and more powerful LaFerrari or Mclaren P1.

 

That was on the first day of testing. Keep watching the video. By the second day he turned all the electronic aids off and drove it at 10/10ths and his feelings about the car were quite different.

 

Mixed reviews? Eh ? Where ?

As for Harris ,
That's not what was said at all .

 

The P1 is great technology but nothing you could visually fall in love with.

 

918 seems to be the darling of the moment. I've yet to read a truly negative comment on it anywhere. Some people find it a bit boring to look at (namely Stevie Wonder and other vision challenged folks out there) but in terms of performance its got everyone paying attention.

Has anyone of note other than Jay Leno and Jeremy Clarkson driven P1 and made their impressions public? I really can't recall reading anything other than their comments.

 

I did. There are a lot of things about the P1 that speaks to me more than the 918. I was going to get the 918 at one point, however. Its a great car too.

 

918 sets a new Ring record of 6:57.

 

? It did that a few weeks back

 

I saw another review at Valencia who drove the car either before or after Chris had, I believe the test was from Autocar. Their driver relayed, or at least how I heard it and how I noticed the car behaving, was also that the car was difficult to drive at the limit. This is obviously not a problem from a non-professional or even somewhat talented driver driving one daily, just interesting.

Valencia is an excellent F1 proving ground so it should put the 918 through its paces better than anywhere, but to me the car looked nervous under hard breaking and trail breaking at turn-in, with both drivers.

 

STOP THE PRESSES!

 

+1.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but LaFerrari went from public debut in Geneva to customer deliveries in a little less than a year?

Pretty good for a car that was supposed to be mired in 'development hell'.

 

I find the 918 a bit boring to look at - I think it's a truly beautiful cohesive design but I dont find myself pouring over the photos of it or finding any special new details or curves I didn't see before. It's a classic and very smooth shape - I guess the part I find boring is the very front, esp the headlight cutout. Not sure if it's because it matches the front bumper air vents below it which makes it "too" symmetrical or if its just the shape chosen for the headlight section itself.

This might sound crazy but I think it would actually look better with old-school pop-ups that look hidden a la the old slant nose models. I cant recall why pop-ups were discontinued (I thought it was them breaking a lot and/or new laws requiring daytime lights which made them pointless) but I find quite a few cars these days that I think would look better with them!

Attached is a pic of what it would like w/popups and while it will be painfully obvious that I'm not a graphic designer, I quite like the result...
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they're too heavy. the motors add unnecessary weight that is needed elsewhere.

 

Now that you brought up the picture of the concept 918, I would like to add a few things from my observation from internet photos. Asides from the obvious changes on the exhaust pipe, the 918 concept is overall more compact length-wise than the final version.
the production version seems to be elongated on each end by quite a bit. ( there is one photo I found on google that shows both from the profile in same scale). Also the concept version doesn't have a seam for the front hood. Personally i prefer the concept version proportion and the cleanness of the seamless front end, but overall I think it is a very well designed car appearance-wise.

 

Mike, have you finalized your order?

 

Its not finalized until 6 months before delivery. I have a sept/oct build. best

 

I was led to believe that pop up's died-out due to the introduction of some new stringent pedestrian-impact regulations Europe?

 

I think the P1 is pure sex.

 

I agree, of the three the P1 is the best looking.

Laffer is somehow uninspired ( looks too much like a refreshed Enzo) and the 918 is just ugly.

 

Perhaps

When I was talking with the P1 designer FS he said the front and rear lights were designed for function + weight loss. I think if a P1 (in race mode) hit a pedestrian that rear wing would be a very effective guillotine. Hopefully that never happens.

The rear LED tail lamps are to get more heat out of the engine bay but also to reduce weight. Reminds me of when Enzo was obsessed with reducing weight on the F40, right down to the pull strings for the door release.

 

Interesting stats, thanks!

You can add P1 to the list, it is 1138mm, 22mm higher, about 0.86 inches. That measurement is to the top of the roof snorkel. Not sure what it is to the roof itself but I suspect the snorkel is about an inch, so possibly very similar in height visually.

Any idea about what the ride height or wheelbase of the LaFerrari? I believe the P1 ride height is 70mm or 2.75 inches