CAR & DRIVER COMPARISON?

[pwd72s]

Any other C&D readers out there? Latest Issue, a comparison between a new 996 Turbo, and a new Z-06 'Vette. Tires stock, pressures as stated in owner's manual. A course involving acceleration, speed, handling and breaking. Tests done @ Michigan Speedway. Porsche selected Hurley Haywood to drive, GM selected somebody I never heard of, but obviously skilled. Read and weep, I guess. But performance bang for the buks? Uh, yeah. Article didn't say how many stereo speakers in each car, however...
so probably not a fair test. Read the article, THEN comments, please...

[josh912]

Not to say that the Z06 isn't an awesome car but Car and Driver sucks. They have always beem bias to Porsche. Look at all of their car comparisons with Porsches. They always manage to make porsche look bad, complain about little things (and not the other car's big things) and Porsche always manages to loose the comparisons, even if they win all of the tests! Needless to say, an Aztec would sloughter a Porsche 911 GT2 in a performance test in Car and Track. They're so bad I don't even get it anymore, and the closest I get to them is in the airport when there is nothing else to read.

You want a real road test, read Road and Track!

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Joshua Harrison
1968 912 Coupe
www.geocities.com/jkh912
27 days till I'm reunited with my 912!!!!!!!!

[pwd72s]

Joshua, Joshua...in this test, all C&D did was set up the course. The manufacturers sent the cars, and the drivers. I didn't find press bias here at all. Not like I find it in any major daily USA newspaper covering the inside the beltway news, anyway....

Funny, I just read that article today, at the airport because there was nothing else to read...

Anyway, 0.7 seconds behind a 'Vette that weighs 300-some-odd pounds less isn't such a bad result for the 911 Turbo.

To Chevy's credit, at least they have a serious factory racing team supporting the Corvette.

[thamlin000]

C/D's Editor-In-Chief is Csaba Csere. He has owned several 911s. My observations is that C/D is bias towards Porsche (and BMW) in nearly every comparison test they do. Even when these cars don't perform as well (at least on paper) as other sports cars. Case in point: Boxster vs Corvette. I have yet to see a comparison test where the Vette wins even though, on paper it, is a much better performing sports car. It is great that C/D doesn't rate cars depending on their on-paper performance and that it takes in other factors (drivability, feel, fun, etc) also. Of course, this is where every Porsche ever made has shined. That is what has me bias too.

BTW, the 996 Turbo weighs 3500 pounds! The Z06 is 3126 lbs. AWD, navigation systems and automatic trannys don't belong on 911 Turbos. But that is another matter......

[pwd72s]

"BTW, the 996 Turbo weighs 3500 pounds! The Z06 is 3126 lbs. AWD, navigation systems and automatic trannys don't belong on 911 Turbos. But that is another matter...... " thamlin000. You know, I think you hit on something here, something that does matter. I can remember when P car owners would chuckle about the heavyweights...the Corvettes. Heavy cars can handle...but do they handle well?

[cegerer]

3500 pounds?! My God, the 911 has become a Super Big Gulp.

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1971 911T - 2.5L Big Bore

[island911]

Same slosh, different day. . . .oil that is; in the crackcase.

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'81 Platinum Metalic SC COUPE

[pwd72s]

3,500 pounds...yep, maybe P car engineers have decided that Caddy owners were right all along when they believed that heavy cars "hugged the road" better. Anybody know how many speakers in the 996 Turbo's stereo?
Power seats? Power windows? All these comfort items add weight, folks...lots of it.

[Matt Holcomb]

Do we really want compromised and overladen Porsches to be winning comparisons?

What kind of message would we then be sending to Porsche?

[plain fan]

I always find it funny that comparisons with Chevy's best never meets Porsche's best, the GT2. No AWD, navigation, power seats....now run the comparison.

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plain fan

[Colby]

I haven't read the article yet (but I can't wait to now!), but I must admit that Porsche definitely has its hands full with the competition. They used to be the big and the bad whom little could touch, and when a V8 spanked it one the straight line we would write it off as "Porsches were never meant to be drag cars". But now Corvettes and Vipers are coming onto our turf, the racetrack, and giving us a serious run for our money...scary part is you could buy a Vette, a boat, and truck to pull it with for the price of the Porsche. So why again should I go with the Porsche if the Corvette does pretty much everything the Porsche does...oh, except scream "I'm VERY rich"? I don't want to be the traitor here, I love Porsches and have the utmost respect for German engineering. But I'm only 27. I grew up in the 80's when American cars were junk. Times are changing. I graduate from law school this December. When I treat myself after landing (finally) a high paying job, I'm going to need some serious persuasion to stick with Porsche. M3's, Vipers, Vettes...they are all looking very tempting for a lot less money.

Colby

[JAE]

Have to tip my hat to the boys at GM for this one. Getting it done where it counts- on the track and on the street. With a sticker of less than $50 grand and that kind of performance, you would have to be a complete idiot to buy a 996 turbo for anything but it's looks. And, well, the regular 996 for $70 grand? They better put in some mighty comfortable full power seats and a lot of speakers, because you will not want to put your foot into it next to a Z06- even on the twistys.

Joe

[Jack Olsen]

Is this article available on-line? Am I going to have to drag my backside out of this chair to read about a Corvette besting a Turbo?

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Jack Olsen
My Rennlist page • My Pelican Gallery page • My Porsche Owners Gallery page

[911pcars]

I haven't read the comparison article yet so I don't know how badly the Pcar was spanked, but were these two cars off the rack?

Typically .... very typically, when a car is destined for testing/review by a consumer publication, the manufacturers tweak them to perform better than one would ordinarily find one in a showroom. How much they were equally tweaked and still remain within the spirit of a "fair" test is anybody's guess.

If C&D was comparing typical Pcars and Vettes and the latter won, that says more about the current state of Porsche cars than the superiority of the GM. To outweigh the competition reveals the fat around the waist in Porsche's philosophy about what constitutes a performance car. However, one cannot argue the fact that Porsche remains the most profitable car manufacturer. So they must be doing something right for the right people (with large checkbooks).

Sherwood Lee
http://members.rennlist.org/911pcars

[Jack Olsen]

However, one cannot argue the fact that Porsche remains the [world's] most profitable car manufacturer.

You may have hit the nail on the head. I think someone could certainly argue that because there are record amounts of Deutschemarks going into the pockets of Porsche shareholders, there might be a corresponding dearth of those same Deutschemarks going in to the kind of engineering R & D that could be used to kick Chevrolet's and Dodge's and BMW's behinds. Porsche shouldn't be the most profitable car maker in the world. It should be a lean, mean, group of performance-obsessed engineers, visionaries and racers who are setting records for the amounts of money they re-invest in staying ahead of the fat, profitable manufacturers of unspectacular econoboxes and lumbering GT cruise ships.

There, a nice Sunday-night rant for you all.

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Jack Olsen
My Rennlist page • My Pelican Gallery page • My Porsche Owners Gallery page

[This message has been edited by JackOlsen (edited 08-20-2001).]

[rstoll]

Well, some guys just don't get it. If you are looking for faster, better, bigger, lighter, you will always be next year's customer. And that is why design engineers have a job today. New technology is great, but to the old guy like me, classic technology is good enough.
The 911 has much more to offer than jus performance. There is the sound of the chains and valves as it runs, the balky 915 tranny and the oily aroma after a hard run that make it a real "rollerskate".
Warren's earlier post about the smell of bean oil on a Sunday morning at the track is just one example. There is more to the whole 911 thing than going fast.
Don't need a Viper or a Corvette to get the whole rush. Maybe a 427 Cobra. Nah!! They don't even smell the same.

[Early_S_Man]

For me, and IMHO ... Car and Driver lost most of their credibility as an enthusiast's magazine over 15 years ago when they declared the Honda Civic CRX a SPORTS CAR!!!

Then they started a campaign championing the Ford Taurus as America's greatest car, ingnoring minor problems of ownership, such as ... non-adjustable camber on the front struts, and fragile, plastic headlamp assemblies costing over $550 apiece!

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Warren Hall
1973 911S Targa
1992 Dodge Dakota 5.2 4X4 parts hauler

[FAST FREDDIE]

WELL, WELL, WELL. AM I NOT THE LUCKY GUY. HAVE BOTH A 89 911 SILVER ANNIVERSARY AND 01-C5 NBM VERT W/OAK INT & MN6. BOTH CARS HAVE SUCH A DIFFERENT CHARACTER THAT MAKES EACH A PLEASURE IN IT'S OWN WAY.. THE VETTE'S ONE MEAN DEAL "A MONSTA" WHILE THE 911 IS EXCEEDINGLY TEUTONIC.. THE BEST IS TO ENJOY BOTH INSTEAD OF ONE OR THE OTHER.

REGARDS,

[Z-man]

While I believe the 911Turbo is a superior car, you gotta give the guys at GM the award for "Minimizing cost, maximizing performance/fun." (A philosophy I adhere to myself!)
A Z06 costs less than 50% of a 911 Turbo, yet when it comes to performance/handling/fun ...etc, it probably offers 75-80% of what a 911 Turbo offers.
Not a bad trade-off if you're not rich.
However, there is one thing the Z06 does not have that the 911 Turbo has: exclusivity. And that's a big reason people buy 911 turbos and Porsches in general.
Just my $0.42.
-Z-man.

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My toy: http://www.pelicanparts.com/gallery/Z-man