VECTOR cars!

No, I have not seen it.
In my collection I have about a dozen commercial videos and tv programmes of VECTOR and lots of my private videos of 14 W8s and the two Avtechs.
But no windtunnel videos.
I have not seen chassis PP-1, 005, 011, 013(Japan) and 015 yet.

BTW, the digital encoding of the VECTORfiles video collection has just recently been finished.
All my VECTORfiles videos are now available on a set of three DVDs.
The plan is to make the whole VECTORfiles collection available on digital form to the VECTOR enthusiast community.
We are talking about 400+ international (from US and Canada, Japan, Korea, Italy, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland etc etc ) magazine articles plus dozens of original VECTOR brochures and posters most of which still need to be scanned and or photographed.

 

For years there used to be a website by an engineer involved in the development of the V12 VECTOR. He had on his website a photo of the Falconer V12 engine mounted in a W8 chassis.
Last night I wanted to check the link page of my old Fortunecity VECTORfiles website (www.drive.to/vector) for a link to that engineer´s website and found out that fortunecity shut down all websites May 1st.


I wish I could find a VECTOR enthusiast with some web design skills to help reestablish a VECTORfiles website in modern dress.

Then I would open my VECTORfiles archive for the online community.
Copyright issues would have to be addressed up front though.
This might be a real challenge.
I am not sure how far Road&Track, Car and Driver etc regard publishing their copied articles online as a copyright infringement even when it is just part of an enthusiast or club community website with no commercial use whatsoever.

 

Preston Tucker & Others: Tales of Brilliant Automotive Innovators & Innovations
by Arvid Linde
http://books.google.de/books?id=xI-tmz8mClwC&pg=PA78&dq=preston+tucker+vector&hl=de&sa=X&ei=IZ--T_6TKe_54QSqlYhu&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

Last year I talked to a German car magazine chief editor.
Their magazine is testing supercars on the Nardo high speed track in Italy every year.
The editor first offered to have a VECTOR owner bring his car for fully professional testing.
Then I contacted a few onwers and one even showed interest.
When I brought up my fndings to the magazine editor again only two days later he pulled back his offer

 

Wow!! I would be very interested in this!!

 

No kidding? That's a shame. I'd love to see the results of such a test. Both with low boost & with race fuel & boost turned up. From what I understand, a minor adjustment to the ecu will net 1200 HP, so naturally I'd like to see that as well (if an owner would allow that!)

 

It wasn't a wind tunnel test. It was a road test where they had affixed strings all over the body of the car to determine pressure areas while driving. I found it interesting.

 

I'll bring the magazine up next weekend. I'll be up in MI several times this summer, so I'm sure we'll cross paths again soon.
I lnteresting note: I saw the Beyond 2000 video in my "Transportation" class in high school. I was probably the only one paying attention.

 

I think I've got pictures of a Countach with such testing done...

 

Haha! That's great. I probably would have been the same way.

Thank you very much for the offer on the article, I would love to check that out.

Chris

 

Vector shareholders wanted to buy Lamborghini?

 

They did. Megatech bought Lamborghini from Chrysler before the takeover of Vector. That's why the M12 has a Lamborghini engine.

 

The way that reads, is that MT bought Lamborghini out from under vector shareholders & then took over vector. Maybe I'm reading it wrong...

Re read it again, & I think I'm reading it right. Says Jerry masterminded the deal to buy Lamborghini from Chrysler, & then MT got it out from under him..?

 

Not quite. MT (who were already investors in Vector) wanted to buy Vector outright from Weigert. He didn't want to sell, so he directed them to Lee Iacoca, who was looking to unload Lamborghini.

 

Ahh. That makes a bit more sense...thanks for clarifying

 

I can't believe I'm just discovering this thread...

I am a fan of Vector (gotta love America trying to build a supercar) and first discovered them as a kid. When I first started getting into cars, I got into the heavy and learned a lot about my favorite manufactures. Vector certainly has a unique and "colorful" history. I don't want to talk myself up, but thanks to my strong interest in this company I would say I am certainly an expert on Vector. I have meet/hungout with Gerald Wiegert several times, I've seen quite a few W8, I've seen and been inside both WX3 Avtechs, I have seen a few M12's (and thanks to one really cool owner got to explore one up close) and I have been to the Vector facility and seen the new WX-8 Prototype up close.

Feel free to hit me up with any questions. Personally I like the look of the WX-3 Avtech's the best, and I still think they are sexy cars. I think with some proper funding and different marketing direction, Vecotr could have become a player in the game, but alas, coulda woulda shoulda. In any case, they represent an interesting chapter in the story of American performance cars, and design wise I still find them to be very unique and cool.

 

Welcome to the thread, Josh! This thread has been pretty active lately.

Chris

 

Welcome! This thread has been active lately, & thankfully without the negativity that seems to crop up elsewhere. I've been looking forward to every new post the past new days, so feel free to add yr .02 on anything said thus far

 

Thanks!

Thanks! I'll give the thread a solid read through when I have some spare time...in the meantime I suppose I could dig up some pics and random facts and what-not. I've been fortunate enough to talk shop with Wiegert himself and a few ex-Vector engineers as well, and they had a lot of cool ideas in the 80's - 90's. Random tidbit - All Vectors (including the W2 which was later upgraded to a W8) had a build in HUD capability...Vector never actually installed one because of two reasons: One, they didn't have the time to invest in developing a car-specific HUD, they would have had to use a military-spec system. Two, they didn't cash to install them as a standard option and they didn't think that anyone would pay for the extra luxury option. Pretty cool for a car built in the early 80's. I enjoy seeing any Vector at a show because 90% of people don't know what it is.

 

The picture on this thread is stunning. I am a car collector of sorts but never heard of these.

Do you know the apecs, what HP, performance and who made the motor? I assume from some of the posts they are not made anynore. Are they alum body carbon steel or ?

I assume there are no dealers left. Any idea what they cost new and what they are going for now. Are they kit cars or MDO cars or do they have Vin numbers

When I leave this forum I will try Hemmmings and Google.

Sorry for all of the questions. I find this exciting

Lee

 

Lee, there is one Vector W8 in south Florida belong to a fellow named Mark.

The Vector was an all American supercar. It is a mid engined (transversely mounted). The engine is a pushrod aluminum block from a d company called Roddeck with a designed based off the chevy small block architecture. Roddeck blocks are use in racing aplications, particularly drag racing. It is twin turbocharged, and from the factory includes an adjustable boost controller. On 91 octane, the car was guaranteed to make 625 hp.

The car was in production from 1990-1993 before being shut down and taken over illegally by an investor from Indonesia who is in jail for murder.

17 production cars were built, two pre production cars, and two WX3 prototypes built on the same chassis; and one W2 prototype that was the basis of the W8 chassis/engine/suspension development.

The gearbox is a manually shift capable 3 speed automatic with custom helical gears.

The cluster guage is right out of the F117-A stealth fighter called an Electroluminescent display.

The 0-60 on 91 octane and low boost was just under 4 seconds, with a 1/4 time of 12.0

The chassis is a aluminum monicoque with a honeycomb base is riveted together with airospace quality chrome molly (3120 I think), and has a carbon-kevlar body

Cost when new was about $440,000 before factoring in options.

Today, the value of the car greatly depends on the history and condition. A low miles car with a well established history (no stories, or fully restored documentation) could fetch 400k-1MM.

One that sold to Barcelona... that one could have been had for the mid 100's; although I'm not certain what it sold for. The Agassi car was fully restored, as was JP's car, and car 8.

Car 12 should have been. A fortune was spent repairing it, but not properly by those who knew what the car needed.

http://www.nthimage.com/Zero_to_100_and_Back/Zero%20to%20100%20and%20Back%20Issue%201.zip
save this zip file/ pdf to have a have a more in depth story

 

Wikipedia is an ok source to get the basics on Vector cars, but it is not 100% accurate so use it as general information only. Googling the car can result in a lot of bs & is not very good for decent info. Not quite as bad as it was a few years ago tho...

 

I heard that instead of jail time, he ended up getting it reduced to house arrest.

 

...wasn't the engine assembled by Shaver?

 

Isaac,

no wonder I never heard of it with only 17 made. Thank you for the detailed information.

I Gogled the car and found one V12 for sale. The V12 was a Lamborgini motor. The older lambos had very finicky motors and a pain to keep running without missing. The newer lambos are fine I have owned two and both were perfect including my current one.

They are so rare I have never even seen on at a show.

Thank you and to the other posters for the information. I am going to keep my eye open and look for one to see it close up and get a owners point of view on handling compared to cars I have driven or owned.

Thanks again

Lee