I am a German engineer working on a sports car interior. The target is to create a dirvers car. As you are the owners of the most desirable Italian automobiles I hope that you could help me in defining requirements for a Drivers Car. What makes a car a Drivers Car??? Your help is appreciated!
As few buttons and controls as possible : take a look at the 308 & Elise - more recently compare & contrast MB-SLK mk 1 which had very simple controls & mk 2 which added loads more buttons etc The dash for the 458 claims to be a big rethink so it may be worth looking in the 458 section for more information Head-up displays have been tried by BMW and may have a place in this simplified regime
reference the 84-89 Porsche 911, just for goodness sake make the ventilation controls better!!!!! 308s and Lotus cars are also excellent reference material. maybe they will let you buy one of each to drive for research and development!
The car should have excellent visibility and the steering wheel, pedals, shifter paddles (or shift stick if it's a manual) and the driver's chair should all be aligned perfectly so as to allow for maximum ease of driving even in a completely upright, forward position that is most conducive to aggresive driving.
Keep it simple. Don't overload it with a bunch of heavy 2billion way adjustable seat that blows cool air into the neck and warms the ass with 10 different massages, make sat-nav an option, keep the buttons on the dash to a minimum. Seats should be low slung. One note. try the indicator thing they did with the 458 italia. I think its super neat. If its stick shifter keep the shifter as close to the steering as it works. Good side bolstering is needed for the seats. Try a wraparound dash like the supra, so it makes the driver feel more at home. Make sure theres a traction control off button in easy reach. <-- It also should turn all electronic nannies off.
For a "driver's car": 1. Make sure you can heel and toe without dislocating an ankle. Pedal height and spacing. (The down side is that you can't drive a "driver's car" in combat boots.) 2. Cable operated clutch. Or a *VERY* precise hydraulic one. The hydraulic clutch in the EVO is hopeless. (Especially as they added a damper to keep CA rice boys from fragging the transmission trying to side step the clutch.) 3. Short throw but well defined shift. The external gate on the Ferrari shifter makes the shifts well defined. The ricer has a short throw, but you need one of those indicator displays to verify what gear you're in. 4. Throttle response. Heel and toe is useless if you have to wait for a turbo to spool up. Flat torque, and lots of it. 5. Simple, well supporting seats. Power adjustable lumbar and side bolsters are nice, but adds weight you don't need. Manual works just as well, saves weight, and won't break down as often. 6. Low mounted seats. Yes, they're harder to get into and out of, but once you're in, you don't have the seat front bolster pressing on the back of your thighs. 7. Pick your shoulder harness anchor carefully. The shoulder harness should rest *on* the shoulder, not hang loose in front of it. (This is a problem with 4-door sedans -- the "B" pillar is too far forward to make a good anchor point.) 8. "Simplificate and add lightness" -- Colin Chapman. 9. Crisp steering, short ratio. (Yes, a bit of a pain in the parking lot, but much better on the roads.) (But I've been driving Italian cars so long that I actually *like* the "straight arm" driving position. ) 0. Oh: the "so obvious it shouldn't need to be mentioned" items: - REAR WHEEL DRIVE! - 50/50 weight distribution. Remember: Race cars have no cup holders. I don't need a connector for my iPod. I need a functional cockpit for the task at hand --- driving. The purpose of a sports car interior is to connect the driver to the machine. Everything else is "fluff". I want to be able to stop on a dime ... and tell if it's heads or tails. (Compare how SUVs disconnect the vehicle from the zombie behind the wheel.) I don't mind a harsh ride -- I want feedback. (I test drove an '88 M3, and found the road feel virtually non-existent, compared to Italian cars. I had to listen for the tires getting loose -- no feedback through the wheel.) (By the '97 M3, it was more of a luxury car than a sports car.) Engineering details: Simple modular design. No chinese puzzle boxes. The console should come out simply, without having to dismantle the shift linkage. (Of course, in a modern car, you might have trouble fitting a modular display cluster board to a padded and air-bagged dash.) Cost versus maintainability: A "multiswitch" (combination headlight, high beam, turn signal) switch can be a single, mass produced item. But it becomes a repeated high cost replacement, over the years. What you build, somebody has to be able to fix. "New and neat" is also "untried and untested". (The internet was built on "general consensus and running code.") Reality time: Many things the customers want, management might not. Simple, common components reduce the parts revenue at the dealerships.
Motorcycles allow the rider to adjust the pitch and span of the brake and clutch lever. It would be nice to be able to adjust the brake pedal and gas pedal location to fit the drivers preference (or foot width).
My opinion would be give us the gauges we need and go minimalist with the rest. Have the interior "wrap around" like it does in the 308. There does not need to be a strict separation of the dash and the door. I think that having a decent "dead pedal" would be a great bonus, but you also need room for the heel and toe shifting. Avoid the use of plastic if at all possible - it just feels cheap which we can get on plenty of other cars out there. PDG
A driver's car starts with the front suspension. The suspension must have low friction in the verticle plane and rather stiff compliance in the horizontal plane. Furthermore, the caster and pneumatic trail must work together to produce an accurate indication of what is happening at the contact patch back at the steering wheel, but little of the road surface irregularities get back to the steering wheel. Finally, tire scrub must be minimized at the front suspension--basically by placing the front roll center a the surface of the road. All this is to make the steering wheel communicative {And I recognize this has little to do with the interrior.} Steering should be weighted so that you have to use some muscle to actully turn the wheel (F348 is right, here, F355 is overly light). If you HAVE to use power assist, decrease its strength over 10 MPH. The displays (tach, speedo, water temp and oil pressure) need to be easily visible at all times (you could throw in the oil temp for good measure)--like right in front of your steering wheel. No DIGITAL GAUGEs--these require mind power to read which detracts from the driving experience. The controls are at arms reach without having to move your back from the seat. AND the arms should have a place for the elbow to rest even while manipulating the controls. Visibility towards the front is paramount, visibility to the back and sides needs to be very much more than adequate. No fancy LCD display for mirrors,.... and don't put a "objects are closer than they appear" right side mirror EITHER (god I hate those).
Off the top of my head: A high degree of precision, Priority in design and construction given to performance and competence over other considerations such as amenities (not necessarily excluding them, though) Good feedback to the driver in the controls -- steering, brakes, etc. Pedals arranged for heel-toe in traditional manual transmission cars Finger-thumb reach between steering wheel rim and gear lever on traditional manual transmission cars High specification of performance-related equipment (i.e. brakes, tires, suspension components, engine efficiency/hp per liter, etc.)
Not really enough info, as driver's car doesn't mean much to me. If the driver's car is something you'd use on track, a full GPS based data acquisition system, with lots of sensors, downloadable data, would be nice. But I like electronics, including paddle shifters. This demographic may cling to antiquated concepts of what constitutes a driver's car - but they also may be your target market.
EVO has a count down on Best drivers car... http://www.evo.co.uk/features/features/239668/100_greatest_drivers_cars_countdown_10091.html You might gete some input from the cars. It is not only fire breathing Ferraris and Lambos here...
About the ventilation, if you mean a.c. the Griffiths system for the 80s Carrera really blows hard and cold. I never needed max a.c. not even in the summer Florida heat on heavy traffic, it was as good as any brand new Porsche or any other car.
The interior should be claustrophobic, a cacophony of sounds, as spartan as a race car. All exposed metal, maybe some carbon as needed and some fabric for the dash. Tach, speedometer, oil press, water temp, rev limiter light, oil temp. No radio, cup holders, maybe a glove box to hold a condom.
Any 911 up to the 993....great visibility in all directions. Intimate cockpit and just the basic controls required. Vital info directly in front of you (tach). No need for a nav system, chrono stopwatches, dimming mirrors etc.
You feel the road through your hand on the wheel and your ass in the seat. You feel the drivetrain through the shift lever. You are one with the Machine.
spend an hour in a 356 speedster and an hour in a lotus super seven..[a real one]..you will learn all you need to know. you may find yourself wondering how cars got so far off track.
No traction control, paddle shifters and ABS crap (that posers love)... and enough torque and precision in the chassis/suspension to scare the crap out of you (enough to command respect). Shave as much weight as possible. Throw away any wheels over 18"... because they don't make decent racing rubber over this diameter and it leaves enough sidewall on the tires to be a little more forgiving when stretching the limits of the chassis and suspension.
