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Message: Allow me to disagree.
Changed By: Constantin
Change Date: July 10, 2014 06:35PM
Re: Cayman vs Caterham 7 Roadsport 140 - Power Allow me to weight ratio and drag race results.disagree.
Change Date: July 10, 2014 06:35PM
Re: Cayman vs Caterham 7 Roadsport 140 - Power Allow me to weight ratio and drag race results.disagree.
[quote=SRG]...no one was using a wind tunnel (for cars like these) in the early 50's. There is the Lotus 11 which is much more streamlined, but I think it was done mostly by intuition/guesswork.[/quote]
Allow me to disagree. The cars that brought us the current standing world record re: speeds on a public road set these records before the second world war and aerodynamics were very much a consideration in the process. Otherwise, they would have gone flying off the track, etc. given the crummy tires and/or crude suspensions the guys were enjoying back then. That Caterham decided to ignore the lessons from their collective forebears re: slippery car shapes was a design / appearance choice (i.e. marketing-driven).
My intuition is that the folk who designed Caterhams worked to make the cars as much fun as possible to fling around winding UK roads as possible, where speeds are low enough not to make their egregious CV values an issue. Put such a car on the track where top speed is important and you learn an important lesson, i.e. you get to study the tailpipes of the guy with the more slippery car.
The Caterham is an idiosyncratic car, not to my taste but I understand why some people would be drawn to its retro appearance. Other cars in the same line of design choices include the Ariel Atom, which posts insane initial acceleration but lackluster top speeds due to excessive CV drag. As with Caterham, it's a conscious choice / tradeoff the designers of the Ariel Atom made, not intuition and/or guesswork.
The McLaren F1 doesn't have the most powerful engine in the world, but the CV is good enough and its weight is low enough to still be considered a very powerful and capable car today. In BBC Top Gear testing it cleaned the clock of a Veyron for the first 200kmH, before the massive HP difference between the two cars led to an inevitable loss. So, small, light, comparatively "underpowered" cars can in fact be very competitive. But note how different a Mclaren F1 looks from a Caterham or Ariel Atom.
Allow me to disagree. The cars that brought us the current standing world record re: speeds on a public road set these records before the second world war and aerodynamics were very much a consideration in the process. Otherwise, they would have gone flying off the track, etc. given the crummy tires and/or crude suspensions the guys were enjoying back then. That Caterham decided to ignore the lessons from their collective forebears re: slippery car shapes was a design / appearance choice (i.e. marketing-driven).
My intuition is that the folk who designed Caterhams worked to make the cars as much fun as possible to fling around winding UK roads as possible, where speeds are low enough not to make their egregious CV values an issue. Put such a car on the track where top speed is important and you learn an important lesson, i.e. you get to study the tailpipes of the guy with the more slippery car.
The Caterham is an idiosyncratic car, not to my taste but I understand why some people would be drawn to its retro appearance. Other cars in the same line of design choices include the Ariel Atom, which posts insane initial acceleration but lackluster top speeds due to excessive CV drag. As with Caterham, it's a conscious choice / tradeoff the designers of the Ariel Atom made, not intuition and/or guesswork.
The McLaren F1 doesn't have the most powerful engine in the world, but the CV is good enough and its weight is low enough to still be considered a very powerful and capable car today. In BBC Top Gear testing it cleaned the clock of a Veyron for the first 200kmH, before the massive HP difference between the two cars led to an inevitable loss. So, small, light, comparatively "underpowered" cars can in fact be very competitive. But note how different a Mclaren F1 looks from a Caterham or Ariel Atom.
Original Message
Author: ConstantinDate: July 10, 2014 06:34PM
Re: Cayman vs Caterham 7 Roadsport 140 - Power to weight ratio and drag race results.
[quote=SRG]...no one was using a wind tunnel (for cars like these) in the early 50's. There is the Lotus 11 which is much more streamlined, but I think it was done mostly by intuition/guesswork.[/quote]
Allow me to disagree. The cars that brought us the current standing world record re: speeds on a public road set these records before the second world war and aerodynamics were very much a consideration in the process. Otherwise, they would have gone flying off the track, etc. given the crummy tires and/or crude suspensions the guys were enjoying back then. That Caterham decided to ignore the lessons from their collective forebears re: slippery car shapes was a design / appearance choice (i.e. marketing-driven).
My intuition is that the folk who designed Caterhams worked to make the cars as much fun as possible to fling around winding UK roads as possible, where speeds are low enough not to make their egregious CV values an issue. Put such a car on the track where top speed is important and you learn an important lesson, i.e. you get to study the tailpipes of the guy with the more slippery car.
The Caterham is an idiosyncratic car, not to my taste but I understand why some people would be drawn to its retro appearance. Other cars in the same line of design choices include the Ariel Atom, which posts insane initial acceleration but lackluster top speeds due to excessive CV drag. As with Caterham, it's a conscious choice / tradeoff the designers of the Ariel Atom made, not intuition and/or guesswork.
The McLaren F1 doesn't have the most powerful engine in the world, but the CV is good enough and its weight is low enough to still be considered a very powerful and capable car today. In BBC Top Gear testing it cleaned the clock of a Veyron for the first 200kmH, before the massive HP difference between the two cars led to an inevitable loss. So, small, light, comparatively "underpowered" cars can in fact be very competitive. But note how different a Mclaren F1 looks from a Caterham or Ariel Atom.
Allow me to disagree. The cars that brought us the current standing world record re: speeds on a public road set these records before the second world war and aerodynamics were very much a consideration in the process. Otherwise, they would have gone flying off the track, etc. given the crummy tires and/or crude suspensions the guys were enjoying back then. That Caterham decided to ignore the lessons from their collective forebears re: slippery car shapes was a design / appearance choice (i.e. marketing-driven).
My intuition is that the folk who designed Caterhams worked to make the cars as much fun as possible to fling around winding UK roads as possible, where speeds are low enough not to make their egregious CV values an issue. Put such a car on the track where top speed is important and you learn an important lesson, i.e. you get to study the tailpipes of the guy with the more slippery car.
The Caterham is an idiosyncratic car, not to my taste but I understand why some people would be drawn to its retro appearance. Other cars in the same line of design choices include the Ariel Atom, which posts insane initial acceleration but lackluster top speeds due to excessive CV drag. As with Caterham, it's a conscious choice / tradeoff the designers of the Ariel Atom made, not intuition and/or guesswork.
The McLaren F1 doesn't have the most powerful engine in the world, but the CV is good enough and its weight is low enough to still be considered a very powerful and capable car today. In BBC Top Gear testing it cleaned the clock of a Veyron for the first 200kmH, before the massive HP difference between the two cars led to an inevitable loss. So, small, light, comparatively "underpowered" cars can in fact be very competitive. But note how different a Mclaren F1 looks from a Caterham or Ariel Atom.