Archive | August, 2010

>Salt Fever

31 Aug

>Quintessential American motorsport.
Don’t think, just say the first thing that comes to mind!

How many of you answered NASCAR?
Stock car racing was initially created during the prohibition era when moonshine runners had to be capable of outrunning the police. I’m not going to make any attempt to go into all the details, but the gist of it all is that these cars, essentially tuned production vehicles modified for speed, would race each other on days when they weren’t smuggling alcohol. This was how Hot Rod culture, perhaps the earliest example of tuner culture, came to be.

’32 Ford Deuce

But NASCAR is no longer what it is today, is it? The closest stock car racing series we have today, I suppose, would be SCCA. However, circuit racing isn’t quintessentially American either.
The rest of you got it right. Quintessential American motorsport? The other obvious response would have been drag racing.

But let’s not make it too easy for ourselves. There can be a drag race anywhere in the world. All you need, really, is a straight and a traffic light.

Today, I’d like pay tribute to a automotive venue that is exclusively our own. Enthusiasts from all over the world journey to this motoring Mecca, if you will, just so that they can truly experience driving in a straight line.
 
The Bonneville Salt Flats. No quarter-miles here. After having a taste of what it’s like to reach astronomical speeds on a surface so flat and expansive that one could visually see the curvature of the earth, drivers and participants become infected with what’s known as “Salt Fever.” Symptoms are the desire to return to Bonneville and to go even faster. 
 
Arguably, the origins of Salt Flats racing and NASCAR are closely similar. The appeal of the hot rod influenced many drivers to bring their vehicles to the flats as well. But while NASCAR evolved into a series that shares little resemblance to their origin, the Salt Flats possesses a sense of pride in their hot rod roots and even provides vintage classifications specifically to ensure their heritage will survive for decades to come.
 
As explained in the link provided (www.bonnevilleracing.com), vintage class regulations dictate that the vehicle must be a pre-1948 vehicle of any American Manufacturer, replica or otherwise. One very infamous rule is the permission to “chop” the vehicle’s roof to lower its height while modifications to the lower part of the body is not allowed. Surprising, yet not completely unexpected, bodywork on the vintage class vehicles do not have to be iron as fiberglass or aluminum are also acceptable.


OLD CROW SPEED SHOP: BONNEVILLE from The Jalopy Journal on Vimeo.

Perhaps even more popular than vintage is the production class vehicles category. It is exactly as it sounds, a category open to any “typical” transportation vehicle that can be purchased from any car dealer. While I may wholeheartedly agree that the goal of motorsports should be “racing improves the breed,” I can’t help but feel attracted to a classification that encourages amateur drivers to participate and to simply “run what you’ve brung.”

 


I hope that all of us can one day get a chance to journey to this speed Mecca that is Bonneville Salt Flats. I hope you’ve enjoyed the photos as well!

>Car Porn

25 Aug

>Here’s a selection of car pictures to get you over that Wednesday hump.  They were taken by Keqing Song, a good friend of mine from school.  For more info, check out his website at here.

Obligatory Chevy Bel Air


Oldsmobile Rocket 88
AMX 390


Jaguar XK120
1949 Lincoln Continental


1965 Chevy Malibu
1971 Pontiac GTO Judge


Supra MK I
2008 MazdaSpeed3


Ford GT
C7 Vettes

>Porsche. It’s not a sellout.

18 Aug

>

You prefer feeling secure? Go buy a wittle puppy. Porsche understands this.


Danny Chin and I rarely agree on all things Porsche (pronounced Poor-sha!). I remember a particular conversation we had where I was convinced, unfounded or not, that a 911 is a car that is truly befitting of my character… to which Chin responded with a Jezza-like remark, “Because of its ass-backwards engineering?”

You haters might as well throw in some Volkswagen Beetle jabs while you’re at it. After all, one of founder Ferdinand Porsche’s first projects was the creation of the Beetle for Nazi Germany, which eventually became the building block for the 356. With the engine, suspension and chassis Volkswagen derived, the Porsche 356 was essentially an aluminum bodied Beetle with a sportier silhouette.
Ironically, the modern Porsche 911 is more true to its Beetle roots than the New Beetle on the market. While the New Beetle was modernized to a front engine fwd layout, the 911 is still and, mark my words, always will be rear engine and rwd.
It is also this stubbornness to move the engine that is the main gripe for many people who dislike Porsche 911’s. There just isn’t enough weight to keep the grip at the front tires. Come into a turn too quickly, and you’ll understeer. You’d think lifting off will be enough to correct it and the next thing you know you’re facing oncoming headlights while spinning backwards. Think of the piece of mind you’re going to feel not having to worry about seeing what you’ll eventually end up smashing into. It’s a plus.
Okay okay fine. Maybe it isn’t a plus. But what about the Lamborghinis that spontaneously combust? Or what about the happy buyer of the new Ferrari 458 Italia who wrote-off the red head in less than 24 hours? Easy come, easy go. You want to be coddled? Buy a Regal land yacht. You prefer feeling secure? Go buy a wittle puppy. Porsche understands this. It’s no accident that the bat sh*t crazy GT2 RS has the looks of a serial killer too.
courtesy of Autoblog
What about the other models? That ridiculous Cayenne? The ugly as sin Panamera? You might think, “Surely, Danny, Porsche is tainting their brand with other vehicles in the line-up that don’t belong. It has abandoned its sports car pedigree to embrace a more promising future as a luxury brand.”
Yes and no. I see this in a different angle. In multiple occasions in the past, Porsche has come dangerously close to bankruptcy. But I believe Porsche will do anything, absolutely anything, to continue selling 911’s. It will do anything, absolutely anything, to prove that they are, and always will be, the best sports car brand in the world, period. If this means that they must sell an SUV and a sedan in order to finance the future of their performance legacy, so be it.

The “always will be” will prove difficult. CAFE laws governing emissions and mpg aren’t doing the future of performance cars any favors. In the car shows of the past year, we’ve seen a new era of hybrid or EV concepts from every sort of manufacturer— veterans like Toyota, sophomores like Tesla Roadster, and the new kids including Chevy Volt, Nissan Leaf, Tesla’s new sedan, the Lotus Evora hybrid that many of you may have forgotten, and Ferrari’s green colored 599 hybrid. The one that takes the cake, though, is the Porsche 918. And I’ll tell you why.

Courtesy of Autotribute

This year, companies were introducing hybrids for one of either two reasons; either 1.) The company figures that everyone else is doing it and it’s a good idea to go into something that’s lucrative and 2.) It’s great for the company’s public image. Take that Ferrari 599 HY-KERS for example. Arguably, it was more of an afterthought, an accumulation of existing parts just so they have something to show people. The Chevy Volt was done because our Federal government bailed them out with taxpayer money and we told them to make things happen or else. The Nissan Leaf, the Fiskar and the Tesla were all made by accountants with the intention of profits. The Porsche 918 is a whole new prototype. “A vision for the future of the brand.” Their noble cause is to ensure the survival of the sports car.

They are not sellouts. They are survivors.

>Sporty Buick… wait wha?

14 Aug

>

Courtesy autoblog.com

Merriam-Webster defines an oxymoron as “something that is made up of contradictory or incongruous elements.”  Applying this term to the automotive world, we could make a whole list that would consist of things like fun Camry, practical supercar, Nascar roadcourse, and sporty Buick.  Yet, GM would like us to believe that a car with “European driving characteristics” makes a performance car regardless of its badge or specs.  So, the General bequeathed its German Opel Insignia to their most lackluster American brand as the 2011 Buick Regal.

Let’s get right to the heart of the matter here, the motor.  In top trim, the 2.0 liter turbocharged inline-4 produces 220 horsepower and 258 lb-ft of torque.  Those are very respectable numbers… for my grandmother, which seems to be the demographic that Buick is still catering to.  That amount of power is very good for a sport compact these days.  However, the leaders of the midsize car segment are pushing out 271 and 268 horsepower in the Accord and Camry, respectively.  Not only is the Regal down on power compared to the Japanese mainstays but Buick also decided to stick an American toddler in the trunk which makes the car about 140 pounds heavier than the Camry and 45 pounds more portly than the Accord.  What makes this argument even more amazing is that the Camry and Accord were never meant to be sporty or performance oriented in any way.  Let’s take a look at a sportier model in the last generation Mazda6.

Courtesy wikipedia.org

The Mazda had the same number of horses under the hood, weighed 260 pounds less, and was 3 inches shorter.  It was praised for bringing exceptional driving dynamics to the midsize market which is a desolate landscape filled with milquetoast offerings.  The one complaint was that in this country of wide open roads it needed more power.  

Courtesy webridestv.com



For Buick to recapture its lost glory, it needs to bring something totally unexpected to the table.  For the Regal nameplate to be lust worthy, take off two doors, give it at least 300 horsepower with a rear-wheel drive configuration, and slap some GNX badges on it.  Otherwise the only buyers of this oxymoron will just be plain morons.

>Rants and Raves

9 Aug

>

Japanese Inventor Masuyuki Naruse has been building and selling his patented Naruse pedal with the hope of reducing or eliminating events of “unintended acceleration.”  He believes that humans automatically stomp when faced with a panic situation while driving.  By eliminating an accelerator “pedal” with a clockwise-rotating arm, there is no possibility of flooring the gas accidentally.

For those of you who haven’t heard anything about this pedal design, here’s the basics on how it works.  There is still a conventional brake pedal that operates the brakes just like in any car today.  The gas pedal, however, is attached to the bottom right hand corner of the brake pedal.  To accelerate the vehicle, this accelerator arm is rotated clockwise.  When the brake is applied in any way, it disengages the accelerator.


While this is a great idea for the safety of the driving population as a whole, I believe that this pedal, with a few minor modifications, would be advantageous in motorsport as well.  By modifying the pedal assembly to retain the ability to gas and brake at the same time, heel-toe rev-matched downshifts would take one less movement to achieve.  Instead of toeing the brake pedal and pivoting the heel over to, then, blip the gas, the driver would just brake with the heel and do a quick blip of the accelerator arm. 

In addition to this, there is less distance for the driver’s foot to traverse to switch from the gas pedal to the brake.  This would mean that braking for a corner could be done fractions of a second later.  Fractions of a second don’t sound like much.  Add those fractions up for every corner on every lap and that’s a few seconds that you got on the competition.

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.