Myth or magic? I finally drive a torsion bar Carrera.

I’m a long-time car nut. As a kid I didn’t play with G.I Joes or Play Doh, I was only interested in my massive collection of toy cars. All my Legos were used to create vehicles. I could tell a Ford V-8 from a Chevy at 8 years old, by sight AND sound. I’ve lapped an Audi R8 at Infineon raceway. I can describe Formula 1 engine technology in detail. I’ve owned everything from fire-breathing muscle cars to turbocharged rally specials, and I can explain the function of every single thing under your car’s hood. Add it all up and I cannot believe it took me until age 42 to actually drive a torsion bar 911.

OK technically I’ve piloted one before. That was two decades ago in a euro Carrera 3.0 for a total sum of 3 miles. It was the daily driver of my college girlfriend’s father, and I spent the entire time making sure no-one ran into me so I could return the car and impress him with my responsibility. The only thing I remember is that it had the world’s worst shifter – a 915 with bad bushings delivering that ‘stick in a bucket of oatmeal’ feeling.

This new experience is different. I have a well sorted one owner ’87 Carrera Targa at my disposal. It’s a sunny Saturday, and I will zing it along an epic backroad. All of my senses are on alert. The car is freshly detailed. Keys in hand, heart rate calm, I am truly ready to experience one of these things.

Opening the door and getting in reveals high quality materials everywhere. Seats, gauges, door handles, it may be aged but it is QUALITY. The doors close with that epic “ching” not heard anywhere else in the car universe…including later Porsches. I familiarize myself with the controlls, the bottom hinged pedals adding to the intensity. Even the start key is in a unique position; left of the steering column.

The ergonomics are combination of old school German function and “screw you”. I sit slightly offset to the right to reach the pedals properly. The steering wheel and shifter require a reach. The ventilation controls are WAY down low on the console. This all harkens back to the original layout of the early 60’s and not a lot has changed. To sum up, if you want to drive a car this special, you will adapt to it…not the other way around.

I fire the engine and get that classic bassy whir of air-cooled 911. Everyone knows what it sounds like; that rumbly rash from the rear. In the cockpit it’s the same, albeit with the bass turned up a notch.

Moving off from rest imparts a true sense of occasion. It just feels, sounds, even smells special. This car is a full 24 years old but passers-by still look as I burble past. The floor mounted shifter requires a decided reach but snicks into gear with a surprisingly direct and positive motion. This is a later G50 gearbox car, so that part of it is up to snuff. The flywheel is the perfect weight for the engine, making smooth shifts the norm instead of the exception.

After building the Carrera up in my mind for so long I expected a lot more torque from the 3.2L six down low but that just isn’t the case. It has decent shove under 4,500 rpm, but that’s about it….decent. Once 4,500 arrives it gets on the cams and goes, but below that I’m reminded that this is an old-school engine. There’s no variable valve timing, no Varioram, none of the tricks currently used to help motors punch above their torque weight. The compromises are felt here; it's a short stroke, big valve engine tuned to push out the power at higher revs instead of the low end and midrange. This puts more responsibility in my lap to extract performance from the car.

 

Once I’m in the twisties, the steering wiggles, worms, and and tugs in my hands like a live animal. This isn’t steering feel, it’s steering MUSIC. With no power assist it also requires two hands at all times unless you’re benching 4 plates on a regular basis. I’m  soon aware that this car is a workout to drive. It’s not tiring per se, just physical. The brakes need a hard shove. The steering demands both arms and all muscles on deck. The shifter doesn’t fall to hand, I have to reach for it. Add it up and I can see what it was like to drive a race car in the old days….the design was to make the car fast, and driver comfort was definitely 2^nd place.

As my pace increases, I decide not to push things too far. Kept under the limit of adhesion, there is no trace of that infamous tail happiness. The Carrera just corners flat and has great traction. I find I can be aggressive with my inputs and the car likes it. I feel the road not just through the steering, but every bump announces itself through the suspension into the body and then to my lower back and torso. After a while I get a really great flow going. Turning, shifting, on the throttle, off the throttle, it all starts to meld together into one continuous fluid motion. I move around in the seat, anticipating the car’s reactions and meeting them with my body positioning, and that burly soundtrack from the rear encourages upping the pace. This is truly engaging stuff.

It’s such a connected experience driving this car, this icon. Taking the helm imparts a sense of specialness that some feel is lacking in cars like the Boxster or even the 996. It’s like piloting automotive royalty. Even the brilliant 968 comes off as clinical compared to this Carrera. I can easily say that I “get it” now. These cars aren’t about outright speed or tire smoking acceleration, they’re about feel; sensory perception, sensory overload. You absorb feedback through your entire body, and your entire body is then required to extract the most from the car. It’s a terrific mental and physical challenge. After all this time dreaming about 911s I could have easily been disappointed, but the reverse is true. I now have more reverence for the car than ever before. Consider my head dunked into the river and my baptism complete people, what a glorious day.

What to do with 1000 horsepower?

Today, the Bugatti Veyron is the baddest automotive artillery on the planet. 1000 bhp is its calling card, generated by 16-cylinders, 4 turbochargers, 10 radiators, and an exhaust note like a cow-throwing tornado. With all wheel drive, man-hole covers for brake discs and an engine best described in aircraft terms, it’s easy to put the Veyron's star on top of the Christmas tree.

Of course 1000+ horsepower engines have lived at the drag strip for a long time, but it takes either 9.0 liters of nitrous guzzling displacement or a huge blower to get there. Modern quarter-milers sometimes use turbos to get into the 4-figure horsepower arena, although the size of the snails needed for that kind of application are as easily measured in feet as they are inches.

When it comes to road cars, 1000 bhp is the sole stomping ground of the Veyron, or so I thought until I came across a package offered by Underground Racing in South Carolina. Underground's Ferrari F430 conversion straps two turbos, a snake’s basket of mandrel-bent piping and a gleaming stainless steel exhaust onto an otherwise stock F430. This endows it with an honest 1000 bhp. Custom software is included of course, as well as some gorgeously fabricated intercoolers. It's a terrific looking install, although I’d personally want a guarantee on gold-edged parchment stating that two red hot turbos living that close to a F430’s gearbox wouldn’t result in molten Italian transmission gear sauce.

So that conversion gives you 1000 bhp then, in a car that weighs a cool one thousand pounds less than the Veyron. Deary me, that is exciting. It's even more exciting when you realize all that twist is put to the ground by the rear wheels only. It’s a car that would make you think about going to confession before every drive; square up with the Big Guy before Andy Green-ing yourself down the asphalt.

More research into extreme horsepower brings up additional 1,000+ conversions. Hennessey Performance will twin-turbo your Dodge Viper to 1,000 bhp, or even 1,200 bhp if you order the special option engine package. It walks the walk too, as evidenced by the Road and Track video below where it beats the Veyron in a run to 200 mph. Now I don’t know about you, but the sequence through the gears doesn’t look terribly comfortable….

Hennessey will also squeeze this much horsepower out of your Ford GT if you don’t want it to feel left out.

Perhaps you’re bored with your Lamborghini Murcielago’s mere 640 bhp? In that case, ping it over to Heffner Performance for a double-turbo makeover. 1,100 bhp will be the result, as well as a 5.1 second 60-130 mph blast.   

http://www.heffnersperformance.com/heffner_murcielago.htm

OK, so 1000hp doesn’t just belong to Pro Stock drag cars and the Veyron. It’s accessible with a number of exotics and a very capable wallet. Speed costs money after all, and as Jay Leno has shown with his 30 Liter tank-engined car, just about anything is possible.

There is a quandary here though, one I can’t quite get my head around.

Where exactly does one effectively deploy 1000 bhp in a street car?

Let's try the street first. That’s possible, albeit only really legal in Germany and even there it's best at 5:00 am on a quiet autobahn Sunday. Perhaps another place could be the 2-laners criss-crossing Nevada? Fair enough if not technically legal, but those roads hardly get swept for debris every day and one errant nail into a rear tire at 160 will have you briefly dog-fighting Navy pilots out of Fallon before you unceremoniously spear back to earth. There are probably some places in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait you could do it, although I’d bring an interpreter and a passport from somewhere other than America for starters. Rule out essentially all rural and urban areas, unless massive speeding tickets or burnout contests are your thing and nothing else.

So to review, I came up with three street venues on the planet where you could slap all of your car’s 1000 horses on the ass at once; Germany, the Middle East, and maybe Nevada. Anywhere else and you’ll either have police aircraft chasing you or you’ll kill someone. 

Let’s try again. If street venues are scarce, how about a racetrack? Perhaps…if you could find a road-course with a long enough straight like Road Atlanta or Mid-Ohio. Even then you’d be battling wheelspin everywhere else.  What about a big oval track? Not unless you know the proprietor and sign a phone book's worth of waivers in your own blood releasing liability. Drag strip? Yes, although you would mimic a AA/Altered smoking the tires all the way through. You could try mounting slicks at the strip, but be sure to include a big diaper to put under your car to catch all the shards of CV joint and axle shaft that would disintegrate upon launch.

That leaves airport runways, which would require some serious connections or money....something honestly not out of bounds for people willing to twin-turbocharge a Murcielago. An airstrip is where an event called the Texas Mile is held, a weenie-stretching contest without parallel in the southland where some really incredible cars punch serious holes in the air twice a year.

All in all, there are precious few places to unleash a 4-digit bhp street car to its full potential. Not that tapping every last ounce of performance is required for ownership, but 1000 bhp does strike me as the automotive equivalent of professional bodybuilding. Extreme power, focused dedication, and desire to be the top dog are all required, but the finished product is best off being glossed-up and displayed instead of put to actual use. Real functionality takes a bit of a backseat.

On the other hand where would the world be if everything had limits? I admire the companies who engineer these crazy conversions, but perhaps my practical Swiss heritage dismisses me from the target market for such extremes. I will continue to admire these vehicles…even if their massive power levels confuse and frighten me.

So you want to buy a Ferrari, eh?

As the go-to “car guy” amongst my family, friends, and aquaintances, I occasionally have conversations with people considering Ferrari ownership. These discussions center around desirable later model Ferraris that have entered the price range of relative sanity, and can now be had for the same money as a new M3 or Jag XK. The late model used Ferraris currently floating in our mortal-sphere are the 355 and 360, both of which can be had in the $50K - $80K range for an average condtion example.

My common response to questions about 355 or 360 ownership is to ask what kind of price cap the interested party is working with. If it’s at the bottom of the range, I pull no punches. I immediately cram stories of $10,000 clutch changes, $5,000 brake jobs, $200/hr. labor rates and untraceable electrical problems down their throats. This is tough love, because simply giving a slap on the back to go for it would be criminally bad car advice…or at least highly irresponsible without first providing a framework of the potential running costs. It would be like recommending a 928 from a humid climate for someone’s first Porsche, or an early-80’s Jaguar XJ-S for a shadetree mechanic to tinker on.

A graphic example of contemporary Ferrari ownership recently popped up in a profile published in Keith Martin’s Sports Car Market magazine.  Sports Car Market delivers ownership and buying advice in a frank, no bullshit way. In this article, seller/importer extraordinare Michael Sheehan profiled a 20,000 mile 2001 Ferrari 360 Spyder with a "cars-gone-wild" repair history. Initially fixed for flywheel bolts backing out of their bores (when was the last time you heard of that?), it had been treated to a new piston with rings, two new exhaust valves, and some valve refurbishment in three other cylinders. Why did a low mile beauty need such drastic engine work?

Apparently, this particular 360 had a battery replacement at some point in its life. You see, along with the main positive side battery terminal connect, the Ferrari 360 has a current-sense wire that also needs to be properly secured. The current sense wire connects directly to the alternator, and without it being tightened correctly the electrical feed to the alternator can become intermittent. You guessed it, this 360's current sense wire remained loose after its battery was replaced.

The intermittent electrical feed to the alternator caused random coil misfires (the 360 having eight coil-on-plug ignition coils), which in turn caused the pre-catalytic converter on one cylinder bank to overheat. After a while, the heat stress broke up and disintegrated that converter. The effects of exhaust reversion then took over, sucking broken converter bits back into the engine. A few of those fragments got as far as the intake box, and then had a right stonking party in a couple of the cylinders. This necessitated the new piston, rings, and valve work, a procedure that was luckily accomplished with the engine still in the car. That work logged a tab of about $12K.

So let’s review. An improperly installed battery ended up pushing over a room full of mechanical dominoes which ultimately resulted in major rotating assembly damage. I don’t know about you, but I don't have enough digits on my bank balance to catch random $10,000 bills for improper battery tightening-downing on my Italian exotic.

Thus, my advice to my Ferrari-fruity friends is that if you plan to buy and drive one regularly for 5 to 10 years, make sure you’re comfortable with paying half-again of the purchase price in maintenance, repairs, and what not over that time. It may not end up being that financially dramatic, but that's the figure to be prepared for. The sports car world has always been “pay to play”, but with used late model Ferraris (or Lambos and Maseratis for that matter) it is especially so. Caveat emptor people…..caveat emptor.



Michael Schumacher's biggest challenge ever

Michael Schumacher returns to Formula 1 in 2010 after a three year layoff from the sport. Three years out of F1 is a very long time. It is a sport that waits for no-one and changes constantly, continually, relentlessly.

On the face of it, no driver in recent memory would have a better chance to pick up where he left off. At age 41, Schumacher is in better shape today than most of us will ever be in any point of our lives. To be fair, he is one of the few who has been touched by God with his athletic ability, technical acumen, hand-eye coordination, and guile. A healthy dab of narcissism doesn’t hurt either. He works out obsessively, measures what he eats, and is completely motivated by the thrill of competition instead of how it fills his bank account.

He was highly visible as a retired guy during his time off, standing rigidly in the Ferrari pits like a guard dog on 'stay' while watching the up and down performances of Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen. In his role as an "advisor" to the Ferrari team, he was a quasi-coach for Massa, helping him with his race-craft as well as mental conditioning and focus.

However, when you get a guy as successful as Michael who retires at the top of his game, all that extra energy has to go somewhere…and for a while he channeled it into competitive motorcycle racing. In a move lauded by some and questioned by others, Schumacher rode a Honda Fireblade in amateur races as well as the German Superbike Championship in 2008. While many admired the ambition of this new endeavour, others thought he was nuts. Former F1 team boss Eddie Jordan was heard wondering aloud if Schumacher had “rocks in his head”.  Jordan knows Schumacher well, giving Michael his first chance at F1 in 1991. Regardless, if Schumi didn’t have rocks in his head before Feb 11, 2009 he probably does now for that was the date he took a spectacular flopper off of his Fireblade during a test in Cartagena. Landing cranium-first into the runoff after a bump-induced cartwheel, Schumacher was knocked unconscious and had to be hospitalized. The end result was head and neck injuries that ended his affair with bike racing, as well as his bid to sub for the injured Massa later on that year at Ferrari.

Now it is 2010, his injuries have reportedly healed, and he’s back in Formula 1 teamed up with Ross Brawn at Mercedes F1. Brawn’s success in 2009 running his own team is well documented. Having acquired the carcass of the Honda F1 operation, Brawn gizmo-fitted a Mercedes engine into the car and creatively interpreted the design rules to end up galaxies ahead of the pack. Although the rest of the field caught up mid-season, driver Jenson Button stacked up enough points early on to become the 2009 Formula 1 World Champion. Combined with some stellar late season efforts by teammate Rubens Barrichello, Brawn F1 took the 2009 F1 constructors championship as well.

Schumacher and Brawn were each as responsible as the other for Ferrari’s incredible (and boring) success from 1999-2006. Now they’re together again at a Brawn team stabilized by Mercedes ownership. Schumacher has noted how comfortable he feels already, and how nice it is to speak German in a racing garage…a luxury he hasn’t enjoyed since the Sauber Group C days of 1989-1991.

So on paper it stacks up well for Germany’s darling Schumi. He’s in great shape, fully healed from trying to auger himself into the Spanish countryside. He’s back together with mad-scientist Brawn in last year’s championship team. Go ahead and pull the lever for Michael’s 8^th world drivers title, right?

Well, maybe…and maybe not.

While he is the great Michael Schumacher, his 41 years of age cannot be ignored. Only two drivers in the history of Formula 1 have secured World Championships at a more advanced age; 43 year old Nino Farina in 1950 and a 46 year old Juan Manuel Fangio in 1957. While it is always difficult to compare different eras in racing, one could safely say Farina’s Alfa Romeo 158/50 and Fangio’s Maserati 250F were decidedly less demanding to drive than today’s F1 cars with their 4g+ cornering and braking forces.

In today’s modern “ground effects” era, the last person to compete in Formula 1 at age 41 was a tired and grumpy Nigel Mansell in 1995. The last driver to win a race at 41 or older was the indomitable Niki Lauda a full 26 years ago. Again, Schumacher’s talent and physical condition are exemplary, but there are reasons for those large gaps in time. As the human body ages, it begins to lose flexibility, stamina, strength, and resiliency. One’s reactions slow, recovery time from injury increases, and eyesight begins to deteriorate. Good genetics can keep these factors at bay, but inevitably the body succumbs. As NBA TV analyst Mark Jackson recently put it, “Father time is undefeated”.

So where does this put Michael Schumacher for the upcoming season? I imagine there will be race wins and virtuoso performances…as well as a number of unexplained offs and some occasional hammering around mid-pack. As former F1 pilot Johnny Herbert recently pointed out, Schumacher doesn’t have the luxury of a full salvo of off-season testing to dial the car in. It will have to be fast “out of the box” so to speak, and so will Michael.

Will he compete for the championship? Perhaps…although Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel and an invigorated Fernando Alonso are clearly the favorites for the crown. That’s another thing Michael will have to endure, the role of the underdog. It will be interesting to see if that makes him better or frustrates him into mistakes. Will Michael battle like the savvy veteran and stake his claim at the top again, or will he be bloodied, bruised, and ultimately ejected from the Formula 1 pride like an aging Lion?

We will see, won't we. At the end of the day, it will be one of the most interesting stories in the history of Formula 1 no matter how it turns out.

Who needs Hybrids? Certainly not Volkswagen....

Somehow in the last year or so, I got myself onto the Volkswagen of America email list. They send friendly messages from time to time, keeping me updated on things like new Tiguan features, Jetta TDI cup racing series results, how they managed to buy Porsche, and so on.

No offense to the fine marque that is Volkswagen, but I don’t always read their cheery emails. Last week however, I opened the one regarding their October 2009 sales figures. I’m glad I did.

Apparently, Americans like Volkswagen diesels now. A LOT.

In October of 2009, VW of America sold 9,076 Jettas, including both the Sedan and SportWagen. Of those 9,076 Jettas, 3,658 of them were TDI diesels.....40% of the total. 

You read that correctly, 40% of the Jettas sold last month were diesels. The Jetta is by far and away VW's best selling model in America, so it’s a significant bellwether. By all forms of measurement, 40% is a stunning number. I haven’t seen diesel numbers like that since the early 80’s, when they enjoyed a brief time in the sun as an economical if clattery and smoky fad.

You see, VW doesn’t do hybrids. They pushed all their chips in with diesel technology a long time ago and they’ve stuck with it.  VW is primarily a world car company and while America is an important market, it is not the #1 factor in what vehicles they produce or how they market them. Diesels themselves are hugely popular in the rest of the world, in Europe they comprise more than half of all new vehicle sales. Massively powerful as well as amazingly economical, modern diesel engines are marvels of performance compared to the banging old sloths of yesteryear. Are you still fearing black tailpipe smoke? Don’t worry friend…with the advent of computer controlled combustion and vastly improved emissions technology, modern passenger car diesels are as squeaky clean as today’s advanced gasoline engines. The black smoke really is gone folks.

OK you say, so VW sold a bunch of diesels here last October, big deal. That’s really not going to alter the earth’s orbit or turn the sky a different color. True enough, but it’s certainly worth noting. Hybrid cars are all the rage here in America, in my own personal opinion that has as much to do with the marketing of it all as with the technology. Toyota has done a right thundering business with the Prius and the other hybrids in its stable, and now several other manufacturers have jumped on the hybrid parade float. The common thinking is that hybrids not only represent superb fuel economy, but they also hold the moral high ground so to speak; they are equally attractive to buy for their low emissions as they are for their miserly gas sipping.

Yet, the VW sales figures tell their own story. Jetta sales in total were up 25% in comparison to October 2008, a remarkable feat considering today’s apoplectic car sales environment. So where are those buyers coming from? They can’t all be VW brand loyalists. From the looks of the used car sales lots here in California (Prius country), those buyers could easily have chosen a new or used Toyota Hybrid instead.

A little research reveals that the top 10 mileage vehicles sold in the U.S. for 2010 are hybrids. There is no disputing the relevance hybrids in that area. They get terrific mileage, especially in city driving where the electric motors can take over entirely for emissions free motoring.

However, not everyone is interested in adapting to the hybrid driving experience, as anyone who has driven the funky Prius will attest. VW diesels drive like any other car, sparing consumers from Star Trek type graphical displays and unique driving characteristics.

The last hybrid I personally drove was a 2009 Lexus RX400h, by any measurement a competent SUV in standard form. With the hybrid powertrain, it was a really odd steer. It silently floats away at parking speeds with no engine running at first, then after the engine chimes in all you hear is a persistent groan up front from the CVT managed V-6. Strange stuff this, somewhat alien feeling and about as sporting as a glass of milk. The Prius operates in very much the same manner.

Diesel Jettas and Golfs on the other hand, are the reverse. Here are cars the American driver can immediately identify with. Combine competent German chassis engineering with an engine that has V-8 like grunt low in the rev range, and you get a car you can effortlessly punch through traffic. You can even get them with manual transmissions for crying out loud. Throw in a virtually guaranteed 30+ mpg no matter what kind of driving you do and they present quite a compelling package.

In addition to that, the modern diesel passenger car is less complex mechanically than the electronics-laden hybrid variety. While hybrid powertrains from Toyota have proven to be reliable and capable of 200,000 miles, battery pack replacement is sometimes required due to accident damage…that's $3,000 at the current rate. Plus, other than the dealer or high-quality specialist shops, who is going to reliably wrench on your aging hybrid? Food for thought.

What the recent VW diesel sales figures tell me is that American passenger car buyers are catching on to what full-size truck owners have known for years. Modern diesel engines give big power and sip fuel out of a teacup. There’s a large segment of buyers out there who simply don’t want to go as far as a hybrid, but would love an economical car that can scoot around with authority. Diesels are just that, and it seems VW will be cashing in on it for a while.