Motor Trend: Best Drivers Car

[NeedSpace]

SPOILER ALERT. Do not continue if you do not want to hear how the ratings went. SPOILER ALERT


I read this article in Motor Trend and I love this quote "As all seven judges sat around slurping down beers and supper hammering out a finishing order, we didn't discuss the Porsche. Everyone had ranked it first."

2012 Motor Trend Best Driver's Car - Motor Trend

[Nick Triesch]

I am a reader of Road&Track along with many others. Almost all of the motoring press have said the same thing...that the new 911 is the best 911 ever. It beats the pants off everything. No matter how much H.P. other cars have. Just does everything right. A lot of folks were upset that VW absorbed Porsche a few years ago but look what happened? I also read in an article in Road &Track that after VW bought out Porsche the real folks calling the shots in the company are the Porsche brass. There are family members on both sides.

[OsoMoore]

I frequently pick up car magazines at the dentist or some other waiting room. I flip through them to reinforce my presupposition that Porsche/VW is the best.


I am never disappointed.

[porwolf]

Good to hear the Porsche still lives up to its very first principles: To build a sports car that is the most comfortable and solid performing one of all the models that are competing with Porsche.

[Brandon-FL]

Gotta love the comment from Randy Pobst a four-time SCCA World Challenge GT champion and two-time class winner of the 24 Hours of Daytona - "Holy cow, it makes all these other cars seem stupid!"

[Hnichols]

Fun reading, but I suspect that for 99% of the readers the discussion is almost entirely academic. Even if I had access to a racetrack I wouldn't come close to testing the limits of any of those cars; I doubt I would notice the performance advantage of the Porsche over the Lambo, honestly. (BTW, The Lambo is by far the coolest looking of the bunch.)

As someone who's not really up on modern sports cars, I'm amazed how much power they have. What do you do with 500hp? I think my 200hp 3.2 is a beast. I guess it's all relative.

[m110]

Originally Posted by Hnichols

I'm amazed how much power they have. What do you do with 500hp? I think my 200hp 3.2 is a beast. I guess it's all relative.

I agree. I bomb around southern California on a regular basis in a 3.2 and wonder what others are doing with double the horsepower. My neighbour has a M5 (550 hp) and another has a base SL 550 at 429 hp and I wonder what they are doing with all that.

I would LOVE to see the telemetry of these cars now that it is all in the computer. Are Lambo Aventador guys really crushing it? What is the peak g force and time spent above 6000rpm? What about Boxster versus Caymen....are the driver's habits different?

[Nick Triesch]

Im sure when the 911 came out in 1965 the 356 guys who had 60, 75 and 90 H.P said why do you need 172 H.P in that new 911? Well the truth is it is a lot more fun. While my 3.2 is fun to drive my friends 08 Cayman it a blast to drive. It has 100 more H.P and weighs less than my car and it will fly! It sticks to the road like glue and it's 6 speed is quick. We meet with our cars every two months and drive the Ortega highway near Capistrano and his car just disappears in front of me no matter how fast I drive. Why do you need 300, 400 or 500 H..P? Because the thrill coming out of a corner onto straight highway is way more fun. I can tell you this... my Porsche 3.2 is WAY more fun to drive than my 63 356B Super 75 ever was. Any day.

[m110]

Originally Posted by Nick Triesch

Im sure when the 911 came out in 1965 the 356 guys who had 60, 75 and 90 H.P said why do you need 172 H.P in that new 911? Well the truth is it is a lot more fun. While my 3.2 is fun to drive my friends 08 Cayman it a blast to drive. It has 100 more H.P and weighs less than my car and it will fly! It sticks to the road like glue and it's 6 speed is quick. We meet with our cars every two months and drive the Ortega highway near Capistrano and his car just disappears in front of me no matter how fast I drive. Why do you need 300, 400 or 500 H..P? Because the thrill coming out of a corner onto straight highway is way more fun. I can tell you this... my Porsche 3.2 is WAY more fun to drive than my 63 356B Super 75 ever was. Any day.

Agree, somewhat....while stomping on an S63 coming out of a corner and having all 8 billion computations and stability control blast you down the apex is great.....my point was that I rarely see my friends with big power cars ever do it. There are few 356 guys who don't want more power, few 911 guys who don't want more power, but I'll bet many a 500+ hp new car owner wouldn't notice if a governor was put on the thing. Mark Donohue might want more power until he can spin the wheels in top gear but I'll bet most people use a decreasing percentage of the car's output as time goes on and hp goes up.

[NeedSpace]

I agree, my 1976 2.7 has an incredible amount of horsepower which I recall having about 170hp...my 2011 Mustang GT has 412hp which is absolutely ridicules amount of power...honestly, a little more than I can handle at the moment so I choose not to floor it too often (unless a clear straight away/highway). Makes you wonder what the Bugatti Veyron is like with over 1000hp.

Still, sure as hell beats the 45hp I had in my 1980 vw rabbit diesel.

[winders]

Originally Posted by Nick Triesch

Im sure when the 911 came out in 1965 the 356 guys who had 60, 75 and 90 H.P said why do you need 172 H.P in that new 911?

90 horsepower or less for the 65 Porsche 356 SC? Try 107 horsepower.

172 horsepower for the '65 911? Where did you get that number? Try 130 horsepower.

Instead of a 91 percent increase in horsepower fro the 911 over the 356, it 22 percent.

Let's try to be close to accurate.....

Scott

[clutch-monkey]

no lotus in the comparison, wonder if that would have mixed things up a little?

[winders]

Originally Posted by Hnichols

Fun reading, but I suspect that for 99% of the readers the discussion is almost entirely academic. Even if I had access to a racetrack I wouldn't come close to testing the limits of any of those cars; I doubt I would notice the performance advantage of the Porsche over the Lambo, honestly. (BTW, The Lambo is by far the coolest looking of the bunch.)

The Motor Trend article doesn't claim the 911 has a performance advantage over the Lamborghini. The Porsche clearly does not have a performance advantage. The article says the Porsche is the best driver's car based on their criteria. Huge difference.....

Scott

[Hnichols]

[QUOTE=winders;7008681]The Motor Trend article doesn't claim the 911 has a performance advantage over the Lamborghini. The Porsche clearly does not have a performance advantage. The article says the Porsche is the best driver's car based on their criteria. Huge difference.....

Fair enough; most of drawbacks of the Lambo, for example -- its weight, its imperfect gearbox -- are driving issues that ordinary people like me would notice.

But -- and this was what I was trying to say -- most of their judgments regarding "drivability" were based on a professional driver pushing the cars to their limits on a racetrack. I have alot of admiration for a driver with the skill to notice those differences in handling and control, but for most I suspect they would exist only on paper.

[nineball]

Originally Posted by Hnichols

But -- and this was what I was trying to say -- most of their judgments regarding "drivability" were based on a professional driver pushing the cars to their limits on a racetrack. I have alot of admiration for a driver with the skill to notice those differences in handling and control, but for most I suspect they would exist only on paper.

naa, it's quite easy to tell the difference between cars on a track. on a few de events i have swapped cars with friends and the differences are quite noticeable, and i am far from a professional driver.

cars like the 991 really do make you a better driver. the amazing things they can do mask a lot of inefficient driver abilities. a guy had one this past weekend and it was his second de event ever. after the weekend he told me how his instructor told him on several occasions that the car was allowing him to get a way with things that would crash him in an older car like my 83.