An insight into my obsession

[Entai]

Given the fiasco that it actually ended up as, in hindsight I expect they'd have spent the money

Not sure about that personally, the final price rose significantly from the original estimates, even by going the "easy" route with the V6, so much so that lots of potential buyers were put off purely from the price increase when you could get the, IMO, much better and more exclusive XJR15 for only a little (relatively speaking) more money.

If they had put the price up even more because of all the extra work done to get the V12 to fit, and pass the emissions, and also get it up to 500-550 bhp, I don't think they would have sold half as many cars as they eventually did.

 

[JRS]

snip

As far as the list price goes - Jaguar originally quoted £361,000, it ended up as £403,000. I make that about an 11.6% increase - not inconsiderable, but if you're spending that kind of cash I'd guess it all starts to blur anyway Had the price gone up that high but the specification remain as Jaguar had led people to believe it would be (hoofing great V12 motor, Ferguson 4WD setup etc) I think there would have been less of a ruckus over it.

Of course, the real problem was that people were buying them to sell on immediately and make money. And the change in spec plus the increase in cost nixed that plan. Tom's crew offered the XJR-15 (not as pretty as the 220 but it was less expensive and had serious motorsport pedigree), and thus began the legal wranglings.

 

[Sone]

back to the F1, anyone driven one? flibster maybe

 

[mintums]

great demonstration of the XJ220's turbo-lag here.

No doubt the usual JC exaduration, but amusing none the less. Also, sombody please tell me what the music at the start of this video is, I've been wondering for approximatly 10 years, or whenever I first saw that video!

Showing my age here (and likely to get shot down in flames for my music listening history) but sounds awfully like T'pau singing 'Heart and Soul'

Assuming you mean the TG clip....

<duck>


Mint

 

[Hawk Tuah]

When clarkson reviewed the Mclaren F1 and put it against the modern crop of supercars, it was against the Zonda, Enzo and... can't remember the other one. However it was all pre Veyron. Clarkson has now driven the Veyron and said it was the finest car there is.

The Mclaren F1 is a great car, but I think the Veryron is in another league altogether.

Didn't they say that if you put a Mclaren F1 and a Veyron next to each other and gave the F1 a 120mph headstart, the Veyron would reach 200mph quicker.

Thats quite a difference.

 

[Saytan]

evo did a piece on these for their 100th issue, it was a solid wall of superlatives - the most notable in my mind was that someone should pay the engine designer to come out of retirement - by all accounts it made the likes of the zonda's engine seem "a bit one dimensional"

 

[355F1512TR]

sounds awfully like T'pau singing 'Heart and Soul'

THAT'S IT!!!! Seriously, thanks a lot. If I die tomorrow, I die a contented man

 

[rare]

Its heart is made by BMW, of course its the best

 

[Entai]

As far as the list price goes - Jaguar originally quoted £361,000, it ended up as £403,000. I make that about an 11.6% increase - not inconsiderable, but if you're spending that kind of cash I'd guess it all starts to blur anyway Had the price gone up that high but the specification remain as Jaguar had led people to believe it would be (hoofing great V12 motor, Ferguson 4WD setup etc) I think there would have been less of a ruckus over it.

Of course, the real problem was that people were buying them to sell on immediately and make money. And the change in spec plus the increase in cost nixed that plan. Tom's crew offered the XJR-15 (not as pretty as the 220 but it was less expensive and had serious motorsport pedigree), and thus began the legal wranglings.

I thought the XJR-15 was more expensive than the 220.

back to the F1, anyone driven one? flibster maybe

Yes I have, quite a few times, I especially liked the long tail version.

When clarkson reviewed the Mclaren F1 and put it against the modern crop of supercars, it was against the Zonda, Enzo and... can't remember the other one. However it was all pre Veyron. Clarkson has now driven the Veyron and said it was the finest car there is.

The Mclaren F1 is a great car, but I think the Veryron is in another league altogether.

Didn't they say that if you put a Mclaren F1 and a Veyron next to each other and gave the F1 a 120mph headstart, the Veyron would reach 200mph quicker.

Thats quite a difference.

In a straight line , maybe, but who would buy any of these cars to just go drag racing with.
We will never really know which is better on a proprer race track because Bugatti (VW/Audi) will never let a Veyron be put head to head with anything on a track to be directly compared in a proper way.
From what I have heard as well even when you buy one you have to sign a contract saying you will never let the car be put head to head on a track with other cars, so that means we will never find out wether the hype really meets up with reality.

Personally on a track I do believe an F1 would be far ahead of a Veyron, it is so much more agile and responsive to steering inputs that the Veyron, so you get a whole heap more confidence in it's abilities approaching corners.

 

[JRS]

I thought the XJR-15 was more expensive than the 220.

I'm thinking about it now you've said that....I honestly thought they ended up at less than the £400k Jaguar was asking at the start of 220 production. I know a while after production ended the remaining unsold 220s were being sold off for much less - about £150k.

 

[The_Dark_Side]

Has anyone ever seen an F1 on the road?. .

yes, i've been in two of them.
as much as i'd like to be typing "and i opposite locked it all the way around brands", i can't as i wasn't allowed to drive either of them.
this REALLY bothered me as i honestly cannot put into words how much i wanted to.

Personally on a track I do believe an F1 would be far ahead of a Veyron, it is so much more agile and responsive to steering inputs that the Veyron, so you get a whole heap more confidence in it's abilities approaching corners.

i think that would depend on which track we're talking about. if it's one with either a good few straights or maybe one really long one then you just cannot ignore the mahoosive advantage the Veyron has. on straighter tracks i believe that alone would be enough to beat a Mac. however on a more twisty track the two tonne Bug would find it harder going to keep pace. sorry to break this to the Veyron fanbase but like it or not two tonnes doesn't want to change direction.

 

[The_Dark_Side]

The Mclaren F1 is a great car, but I think the Veryron is in another league altogether.

if you limit your discussion to sheer performance than i agree with you 100%...but the Mac is so much more than that. the rarity, the purity (no abs..hell not even servo assisted brakes IIRC), the total lack of compromise in it's construction.
remember the goal wasn't as much power as possible, they'd have taken the easier route and gone FI if that were true, it HAD to be N/A as all true drivers cars are. The F1 makes the Veyron look like it's mass produced as each Mac is completely tailored to whatever the owner wants. you want the seats upholstered in rhinoceros foreskin? certainly sir.
don't get me wrong, the performance the Veyron brings to the game is a league ahead of anything road legal. we're talking old testament stuff here, real earth shattering performance, and it does it unbelievably well but the two cars are only compared because one broke the record of the other and that they're both so expensive. the fact is they're two very different cars. the Mac is a true drivers car whereas the Veyron is a cross country missile.

 

[JRS]

it HAD to be N/A as all true drivers cars are.

That gets repeated all the time, and I don't honestly get it. The easiest example to trot out to refute it would be the Ferrari F40. I'd have said that was a "true drivers car", and yet it has a pair of gigantic turbochargers strapped to that tiny little V8.

 

[The_Dark_Side]

That gets repeated all the time, and I don't honestly get it. The easiest example to trot out to refute it would be the Ferrari F40. I'd have said that was a "true drivers car", and yet it has a pair of gigantic turbochargers strapped to that tiny little V8.

unless you're as gifted as Fangio, balancing a car on the throttle is extremely difficult to to if that car is turbo'd. as the only pre-requisite needed to buy a Mac was money and not driving ability, it's fair to assume that most if not all of the buyers weren't the worlds best drivers and part of a true drivers car is the ability to perform incredibly well while being easy to drive.
throughout motoring history there have been cars which were devastatingly fast, but not only were they a real handful but they were a handful in the hands of driving demi-gods.
The F40 is a great car, it's meat and potatoes engineering and it does it's job well but it's more track racer than road car.

 

[JRS]

unless you're as gifted as Fangio, balancing a car on the throttle is extremely difficult to to if that car is turbo'd.

They do require a different way of driving I'll grant you. As to whether that means they aren't "true drivers cars"....hmm. Not convinced. They don't flatter poor driving, or even tolerate it, so I suppose you could knock them down for that. I wouldn't, but you could.

as the only pre-requisite needed to buy a Mac was money and not driving ability, it's fair to assume that most if not all of the buyers weren't the worlds best drivers and part of a true drivers car is the ability to perform incredibly well while being easy to drive.
throughout motoring history there have been cars which were devastatingly fast, but not only were they a real handful but they were a handful in the hands of driving demi-gods.

Is that the Porsche 911 at the back there, shifting nerviously with a "who, me?" look on it's face?

That said - I've driven a 911 that was built before Porsche wussed out and lengthened the wheelbase (cowards, they should have stuck to their guns), and it was perfectly easy to control it in some wonderful wild oversteery moments. As long as you took a *brief* moment to acknowledge the fact that you were in a very short car with a very rearward weight bias....

 

[The_Dark_Side]

They do require a different way of driving I'll grant you. As to whether that means they aren't "true drivers cars"....hmm. Not convinced. They don't flatter poor driving, or even tolerate it, so I suppose you could knock them down for that. I wouldn't, but you could.

i'd define a true drivers car to be one that didn't need the driver to actually be a professional in order to A)make him feel like one and B)deliver serious performance.
to that end i'm not so sure i'd count the F40 as such.

Is that the Porsche 911 at the back there, shifting nerviously with a "who, me?" look on it's face?

That said - I've driven a 911 that was built before Porsche wussed out and lengthened the wheelbase (cowards, they should have stuck to their guns), and it was perfectly easy to control it in some wonderful wild oversteery moments. As long as you took a *brief* moment to acknowledge the fact that you were in a very short car with a very rearward weight bias....

if i had a pound for every 911 that went backwards through a hedge then i would be wealthier than i am now .
until Porsche tamed the car it required a technique that was unique to 911's in as much as the right thing to do was usually the opposite of what your brain was telling you to do.

RE the Mac+ it's drivers car status this is also the reason why you have no servo, no abs etc etc. no compromise and purity all the way.
as Entai said earlier it's almost a given that the like of the F1 will never be buillt again. not because it can't, but because it won't as the F1 was the one and only instance where the bean counters were told to go sit in a darkened room and not to come out until the car was completed.

 

[JRS]

if i had a pound for every 911 that went backwards through a hedge then i would be wealthier than i am now .
until Porsche tamed the car it required a technique that was unique to 911's in as much as the right thing to do was usually the opposite of what your brain was telling you to do.

Bah. It was perfect - just Darwin at work. If you were daft enough to clamber aboard and drive it without an ounce of respect for the fact that the car had a) a ridiculously low polar moment (almost Lotus 49-esque) and b) what seemed at times to be a 95% rear weight bias )) then you deserved to end up in a mangled heap in a field somewhere after leaving a road backwards at high speed

 

[The_Dark_Side]

^
the unusual characteristics killed more than a few drivers.
it HAD to be refined although i do think that for a long time afterward 911's felt that they were lacking something...almost "Diet 911" if you like.

 

[JRS]

^
the unusual characteristics killed more than a few drivers.

True, but they were only dangerous in the same way that early model Corvairs were dangerous - i.e. when driven by someone not making allowances for the laws of physics and how they act on a rear engined car with *fairly* primitive suspension geometry. And my thoughts on the Corvairs supposed defficiencies have been noted on here before - as with the 911's reputation, some of it is true but there's an awful lot of exageration thrown into the mix At any rate, it's not necessarily the car that's at fault. In fact, there are many roads where the tail-happy nature of the early 911s is a) an advantage speed-wise as you can rotate it into bends effortlessly and b) really very fun indeed.

it HAD to be refined although i do think that for a long time afterward 911's felt that they were lacking something...almost "Diet 911" if you like.

Things got better when the Carrera RS came along in '73 (I think?), and then the first of the 930s. But they've gotten much worse again. The car just isn't simple any more. The suspension is too clever, the handling is too sanitised, damn thing just isn't 'dangerous' enough

 

[merlin]

Another vote for the Mac Daddy here.

Very special car.