Just drove the Carrera GT

[Formerly Steve Wilkinson]

Just back from Germany, where I spent a day driving the Carrera GT. Fabulous. A 917 for the street, essentially. I saw 201 mph and there was still more left. One interesting difference between this car and previous Porsche road cars: unlike whatever variant of the Turbo, say, that you choose, this is not a car your grandmother can drive, puttering around in top gear without a care. It really demands involvement. Even the Porsche execs were joking among themselves about the ignominy of getting caught at a light on an uphill and having to get the GT moving again without stalling.

Stephan

[thrown_hammer]

You suck. Do you have any pics???

[jluetjen]

Too bad the factory doesn't claim to have plans to race it. Without racing success as the "reason to be" for the difficulty in driving the car in real world situations, it's just another overpriced ultra-high performance toy for the ultra rich. Basically no different then an Enzo. Incredible performance for the "Buff book" data tables, but about as useful for everyday life as an SR71.

I recently read an article from Motor Trend July 1966 that did an incredible job of poking holes in the Ferrari myth. Now I'm a fan of the early V12's, but the article was pretty damning. Some of the comments were "As for riding comfort, it was virtually non-existent" and "The cars generally are abominable in traffic and indeed thoroughly frustrating anywhere but on the open road". How about this one..."The difficulty here is an engine with poor low-end response, together with a severely positive clutch" and "In most of its manifestations, the Ferrari V12 has hit its torque peak around 5000 RPM and its highest horsepower reading at 7000 RPM." Finally, "To move a Ferrari smartly off the line calls for skilled technique. If the pedals aren't manipulated with care, the engine will stall or the clutch will be subjected to severe wear and will require frequent attention and adjustment"

Comments like that have always been used for relatively useless (in the real world) Ferrari's and rarely on Porsche's. Porsches have always offered the performance of a Ferrari at a fraction of the price in a more practical and reliable package. In two words -- Design Excellence. The first point (Porsche's have the performance of a Ferrari) was demonstrated time and again at Daytona, LeMans and elsewhere where the Ferrari's just didn't have the stamina and economy to win the race. The more practical and reliable package has always be there for everyone to see, along with the price. This seemed to have been a philosophy of the firm since the days of Herr Dr Porsche.

Much as the Carrera GT seems to be a car with awsome "Gee Wiz!" factor, it also shows how even the most focused of companies can lose the vision that made them great.

Would I drive a Carrera GT if I ever got a chance? You bet!
Will I ever get a chance? Doubtful.
Will it ever have an impact on my life or aspirations like a 911 has? Not a chance.

It's not that I don't like the car, its just that I don't even really care any more about it then I care that the US Trade Deficit is now 3.3 gazillion dollars rather then 3 gazillion dollars. Both the car and the trade deficit are things so intangible to me that I don't care. And that's what bugs me about the car, I love Porsches. But I don't care about the Carrera GT. I want to -- but I can't.

[Paul Franssen]

Oahh.. John, if it be any comfort to you...lemme hug you...(just for the sake of that, though!).
I don't feel much different (slight, but not essential) frustration. It's the way of the world. And, no, no impact on my life. The eetsybeetsy thing Poacha COULD do for the likes of us is show us some pictures of them winning races (for themselves and the drivers/teams)...but even that...they don't. They're busy crunching numbers, adding zeros, discussing market stra-h-tegies. Not our league...

[JEB]

WOW - I want to have your life.

[Jeroen]

I heard there's still about 200 available...
hmmm... sell the house, the cars, the wife, the kid... lessee... yep that should be enough for a downpayment

cheers,

Jeroen

[JonT]

That's like saying "I just spent the day in bed with Elle MacPherson". An unattainable fantasy for 99.9% of us mere mortals. I am sick with jealousy and want to hear more details please!

[Paul Franssen]

JohnT, the lusty "details" ain't gonna cure your envy... but ... ok let's be voyeurs and lust freely...

[turbo6bar]

John, what if technology from the Carrera GT filters down into the 911s built a few years from now? Would this not be similiar to the 959?

What if those fancy brakes were eventually modified to fit earlier Porsches, and production lowered prices to reasonable levels? I think it's not unreasonable.

Jurgen

[RickM]

Stephan, I now have Carrera Envy! Thanks Pal! ;-)

[l8tapex]

Let's see...Elle McPherson or the Carrera GT. It's a tough call but, no wait, ok, ah, ok, no, yes, ok ok...oh **** I can't decide. I'll go for the RUF TurboR and hope I can meet someone who looks like Elle :-)

[jluetjen]

Jurgan;
The 959 was still "practical" compared to the contemporary Ferrari's of similar price. It was even raced. And while I certainly can't speak from first hand experience, I can't believe that it was any less drivable then a Turbo. Everything I read said that it was faster then a Turbo without any of the Turbo's difficulties.

Is the Carrera GT really better then a current Turbo or GT3, or does it just have better performance specs?

[JeremyD]

Hey, at least they built it! Thank god their next car is not a minivan. I'm all for them being profitable...

[Glasgow 911SC]

One interesting difference between this car and previous Porsche road cars: unlike whatever variant of the Turbo, say, that you choose, this is not a car your grandmother can drive

Hmm. Walter Rohl said in a recent inerview that the designers made it so anyone could drive it with ease and that they succeeded in doing just that. I guess not.

[Bruce M.]

Now THAT would be a ride! Would love to hear more about its driving characteristics--torque down low, chassis balance, etc.

But it's a special "grandmother" who could "putter" around in an early CIS turbo, if you ask me. Maybe a stock one, I suppose.

[Millzee]

i was reading in autocar about this it has a lot to do with the clutch, its very small but uses similar technology to the ceramic brakes this makes it very snappy but enabled them to mount the engine very low to the ground due to the reduced size of the bell housing, lowering the centre of gravity.

the porsche guys made some very bold statements about the carbon used in the gt, and how other carbon baseded cars would basically fall apart in a very short time

[l8tapex]

It's unthinkable to me that the factory won't race the CarreraGT. The 959 was raced in anger by the factory at LeMans as a 961. It did well I think making it up to 4th before it burned to the ground. If Porsche has no intention of racing the CarreraGT then the car is diminished in my mind. I won't kick one out of bed but to me the 959 would be more desireable.

[rickeolis]

Yeah, but does the new Carrera have that perfectly engineered McPherson strut??

[Formerly Steve Wilkinson]

From the sound of some of the responses to my original post, I think people are misinterpreting my description of the Carrera GT as being a bit of a challenge to drive. All I meant was that superpowered production Porsche road cars of the past have always had one remarkable trait, and it's that anybody can motor around in them even if they don't have a bit of skill. Not well, but at least they'll get there. This car isn't quite like that, but nonetheless, any competent performance-car driver won't have a bit of trouble with it. Maybe they'll kill the engine the first time, but that'll probably be the last time. I didn't mean to make it sound like a '60s Ferrari.

Jeroen posted that he heard that there are still about 200 Carrera GTs available. What I was told by PCNA was that there are "about 100" unspoken for in the U.S. allotment, which they said numbered a total of "more than 500 but less than 750."

Glasgow 911SC posted that Walter Rorhl in an interview had said the designers made it so anyone could drive it with ease, and that they apparently hadn't succeeded. I spent a lot of time with Walter, both talking and riding with him (at considerable speed), and it is in fact Rorhl who "made it so anyone could drive it with ease." When the car was originally put on its wheels, it had very sharp reactions at the limit, Rorhl said, describing it as "like a formula 1 car." There was a substantial amount of excess rear-wheel movement that they had to get rid of. It was Rorhl who spent hundreds and hundreds of hours testing the car and having changes made so that it required not a competition-competent driver but "you and me." Rorhl never meant that he refined the car to the point that you could use it to teach your girlfriend how to drive a manual transmission but that he civilized it for road use by the kind of drivers who, assumedly, would be buying it.

I don't know of another car that had as much input from a single individual as the Carrera GT did from Rorhl, by the way. He told me that when the project started, he said he didn't want to devote that much time to it, so Porsche provided him with two "fast" test drivers to do a lot of the grunt work. "But if you think you're fast and really aren't," Walter said, "it's no good." So they adoised the two guys and left Rorhl with the whole project to do.

The clutch not only uses "similar technology to the ceramic brakes, as Millzee posted, but _is_ a ceramic clutch--the world's first in a production car. It's about the diameter of a dessert plate, which let them mount the engine so the crank centerline is only 3.9 inches above the lowest point in the car--another production-car record. With that and its complex dry sump (which utilizes 10 oil pumps, one pressure and nine suction), I'll bet this V10's CG is about as low as the 917's flat 12.

Unlike the Bugatti Veyron, which is apparently a real pig, Porsche has kept it (relatively) simple in the Carrera GT. No paddle shifters or transmission, for example; they don't think paddle shifters are ready for prime time in a road car. No PSM, of course. The transmission is a tiny thing, when you look at it in the engine compartment. It's transverse, behind the engine, and has six gears. The shifter works not through cables or pushrods but through stainless-steel bands that ride within ball bearings on each side and stretch fully 2.5 meters from shifter to gearbox. The shifter itself, by the way, is quite high--up at about shoulder height high on the center console--very interesting and, dare I say it, it f"falls readily to hand."

Stephan

[echrisconnor]

We can all drive one now...

http://www.maidmarian.com/carrara.htm

Seriously, how can they call a car a Carrera if they never intend to race it (since we found out yesterday that Carrera means race in spanish).